


Scalamandre

by futurelounging



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Dystopia, Edinburgh, F/M, Pandemics, Paris (City), Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-06-01 08:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15138782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futurelounging/pseuds/futurelounging
Summary: An outbreak of a contagion causing violent psychoses across the globe sends the world into chaos and destruction. A scientist and a mountaineer meet in the wilds and join together to try to stop the men behind the madness.





	1. Chapter 1

The muscles in Claire’s arms strained, pulled taut, and her fingertips went numb, slipping inch by inch until she hung by almost nothing. Her vision narrowed to the man clinging to a hook on the door, swinging his boot down upon her hands. Pain shot up her arm, stealing her breath, as he crushed her nails, the bones of her fingers shattering.

He needn’t have bothered doing it. She would have fallen in a few seconds had he waited, but he didn’t wait. And because of his final action, when she did fall, her arms flailing wildly in the air grasping at nothing, she imagined the satisfying crunch of her boot upon his face when she found him again.

Her final moments, before her body shattered upon the rocky ground, were of panic, terror, and vengeance. After her spine split, vertebrae crushed into dust, her eyes opened to blue eyes above her, rimmed with tears. His red hair fell forward, tickling her skin as he shook over her body. “Dinna leave me.”

Claire woke and peeled her sweat-soaked tank off, tossing it over the back of a chair. She rubbed her fingertips, blowing on them as if relieving a phantom pain. The red glow of the light above the door made the dark creases in her skin look bloody and she swallowed the bile rising in her throat.

A creak above her shook her from her daze and she tilted her head to see Frank’s face leaning over the edge of the bunk above her.

“Y’okay?”

“Mmhm. Just dreams. I’m fine.”

He rolled to his back and resumed a gentle snore almost immediately. The sweat had dried on Claire’s skin and she couldn’t bear the thought of stretching another shirt tight against her body. One of Frank’s button-downs hung from a hook on the wall. Putting it on, she quietly slipped into the hall. Red lights faintly illuminated the concrete walls and she slid her fingers along the steel rail as she walked.

Her level slept, but she could hear faint vibrations in the ductwork of life in the two levels above hers. It was their day. Her night. She couldn’t say if it was, in fact, day or night outside. Claire Randall hadn’t seen the sun or the moon in two years.

* * *

 

Jamie felt like his legs had been tied down. His limbs turned to stone and he moved too slowly toward the falling body. He watched in horror at the arms grasping at nothing, legs kicking at an invisible foothold. The sound of the impact upon the rocky ground rattled his ear drums and carved a morbid room inside his mind where it echoed endlessly. He slid to the ground, his pants tearing apart at the knees on impact and cradled her lifeless form.

The wind from the helicopter blades whipped his hair wildly about his face, churning pebbles and dust in his eyes. He would scream later. For days. Now he could only weep, broken.

He looked to the sky and swallowed his tears. “Dinna leave me.”

The tiny tickle of spider legs roaming across Jamie’s damp neck woke him. A nausea rolled through him at the rush of blood as he sat up, his body confused by the unexpected midday sleep. The cave had a way of doing that to him. It pretended to be protection and he played along to ease his mind for a few minutes. The back of his head felt numb where he’d slept on the cold stone, not even bothering with the wool blanket he’d recently tucked away.

A quick glance out the entry confirmed the day was passing quickly and he needed to return to the house before his absence was noticed. Before ducking out, Jamie ran his fingers over the cool metal of the carabiners hanging from his pack. It had become a subconscious habit over the years when his every breath was mountaineering. A superstitious ritual promising they would hold him, that this day would not be his last.

Jamie’s boots slid over dew-slick lichen and he grasped a branch to steady himself, wincing at the sharp ends of budding branches and razor-edged leaves tearing at his skin. _Should have worn gloves._

Life had become precarious since the outbreak. Humans were tender and weak when cut off from modern medicine. A cut, infected. A limb, broken. A breath lost for want of an inhaler. The simple things everyone had taken for granted were now precious and rare. Impossible to come by if you lived in the Highlands, barricaded behind the stone walls of Lallybroch, unwilling to risk the journey to Inverness where only more danger waited.

For two years they’d hidden away here, foraging, tending crops near the home, living with a dull, throbbing fear pressing against every moment.

It took three months before the sickness found its way to them.

Jenny and Ian watched the confused and mad wandering crofters from the highest window in the house. The sickening adrenaline as the infected neared was now known by all in the home. The finger on the trigger of the gun, an arrow pulled tight and shaking with the dread of release. No one was too dear. Not even their own.

Ian had overreacted to one of the children breaking a glass one afternoon. He’d bellowed and punched a door, shocking the children who cowered against the wall. Jenny had flown down the staircase, knife in hand, fingers white against the mahogany handle. Ian had fallen to the ground, bent over in supplication and when he raised his head her clouded face remained still. _Go._ Offering no protest, he’d crawled to the priest’s hole and lowered himself in, locked inside for twenty-four hours. And when he ascended the next day, full of shame and his own stench, she’d kissed him fiercely and bathed him, crying for all they’d lost.

Jamie was one of the last to know. The last in that part of the world at least. The disease spread like wildfire around the globe. No one knew a thing about it. Where it came from? How it was spread? How to contain it? And by the time they started getting answers, it was already too late. Hallucinations and minds turning on their own bodies within twenty-four hours of exposure. Violence and chaos and unimaginable terror. The things people did to their loved ones. To themselves. Those who witnessed and somehow survived often wished they hadn’t.

Jamie had been on an expedition in Norway. Climbing mountains was his joy, his release, his escape. He’d lost his mother, his older brother, and his father, in the last ten years. His sister tended the home with her family, but something happened between them when they were together at Lallybroch. Like the ghosts of their family disrupted the very air they breathed. It was too much, too empty, too fraught with loss. So, he climbed mountains. His godfather managed the operations and he led the expeditions and finally Jamie felt himself at peace in the thin air of snowy peaks.

He’d gone on a vacation. His first. One week of climbing, two weeks in a cabin with no one to bother. Just books, a fire, and whisky. When he emerged from his seclusion, the world had changed. That quickly, things had fallen apart. It was everywhere, and every person became a threat.

Jamie had secured a boat back to Scotland after prolonged and tedious negotiating. It cost him every last bit of money he had and every bite of food he ate came right back up along the way. By the time he arrived at Lallybroch, in a Jeep that had been abandoned, he was met by a houseful of Murrays, weapons trained on him, and the sure knowledge that life would never be the same.

Two long years had passed since then, aging them all at least ten.Two knocks, a beat, three quick knocks. The slide of the latch, and the scent of Jenny’s stew hit him before his feet crossed the threshold. Jamie ran his hand through Young Ian’s mop of black hair, forever bed-headed. “What’re ye workin’ on, Ian?”

“Algebra. Which I hate.”

“Boy, dinna start!” Jenny’s admonishment made a modest effort at sounding stern, but her eyeroll to Jamie told him she’d not die on this hill. She tossed Jamie a small apple, a bit mottled and bruised, but entirely edible.

He raised a brow. “They’re coming in?”

“Mmhm. Lookin’ verra good. Janet and Michael brought back two dozen and they say there’s plenty more growin’. I dinna have vinegar to spare so cross yer fingers the bugs dinna have their way with the rest of the harvest.”

“Ian in the office?”

She gestured affirmatively with her chin and resumed dinner preparations. It all felt so perfectly domestic and serene. And would normally warm his heart were he not on his way to ask Ian if he’d heard any word from the outside world on the radio.

Jamie peeked in through the slightly ajar door, smiling at Ian’s wooden leg propped up on the desk. “Jenny’ll skin ye if she catches ye doin’ that.”

“Jenny doesna have an irritated stump.”

“I’ve heard her refer to _you_ as such. I’d ha’ told her off, ‘cept it did seem rather fitting.”

Ian threw his head back laughing and pushed a chair out for Jamie. “Come join yer brother-in-law, the irritated stump o’ a man.”

Jamie settled into the chair, stretching his long legs out before him. His joints ached from the cave nap and chill in the air. He looked around the office, at the nicks and rough spots in the wood paneling. At the old desk that went back more generations than he could say. The pistol on the wall dating back to the eighteenth century.

That pistol was hidden away by his ancestors as they endured the terrors of the Highland Clearances. The starvation and fear and brutality inflicted upon his people, hiding behind these stone walls. Just as they were today. Somehow the world found ways to recycle its miseries time and again.

“Any signals today?” Jamie asked, expecting the usual answer -- Ian’s mumbled _no_. But instead of that he heard nothing. The absence of denial turned his blood cold. “What is it?”

Ian pushed a scrap of paper to Jamie with a series of words scribbled on it.

_Northwest...gone four clicks...smoke...traps...you there_

“Nomads.”

Ian nodded slightly, his eyes lingering on the door, looking at ghosts. “They canna be far. We need to prepare.”

* * *

 

 

Claire drifted silently down the still, dim halls, turning right at the cafeteria, past the gym, the library, and finally stood before the double doors leading to the labs. She came to them once in a while at night, when her circadian rhythm just couldn’t settle itself. The hum of the machines and the glow of the cabinets soothed her. These things waited for her. Their purpose found only in the maneuvering of her hands. When her skin pressed against the microscope and her vision narrowed to the miniscule movements of microbes, she could forget the horrors of the world above for a moment. A new world floating on a piece of glass.

She scanned her hand and the doors whooshed open. As she approached her lab, a flickering light at the botany lab caught her eye. Unusual to see someone there at this time. Her curiosity got the better of her. She eased the door open.

“Claire? Whatever are ye doin’ at this hour?”

“Oh, Gillian. I was just going to the lab and saw the light here. Whatever are _you_ doing at this hour?”

Gillian’s sly smile grew and she patted the stool next to her. “You and I are guilty of evading the sandman together.”

Claire slid onto the stool and nudged it forward to lean her arms on the table. “No rest for the green-thumbed?”

“Exactly.” Gillian pulled a small plant, no bigger than a finger, out of the grow-light cabinet and set it on the table before her, tilting her head as if some secret hid beneath its leaves. “I’m trying to develop nutrient-rich greens and this one I thought was going to be my winner, but she is giving me all sorts of trouble. Sneaky little wench.”

“She?”

“She knows what she did.”

“I think you might need sleep more than I do.”

Gillian’s yawn punctuated Claire’s ribbing and they both fell into a sleep-deprived giggling fit. “My husband, god rest his soul, used to say I must be a witch because I never seemed to sleep. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was his ear-splitting snoring that kept me up.”

Normally Claire would have tucked that information away and thought about it later. But now, feeling punchy and disoriented, she proceeded without her filter. “When did he die?”

Gillian scrunched her nose, leaning closer to the plant, seemingly ignoring Claire’s inquiry. When she finally answered, it was with casual disinterest. “Oh, three years ago now I suppose. It wasn’t the disease. His heart gave out on him. Quite a shock.”

Claire suddenly felt foolish and ashamed for prying, and a flush rose on her skin. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Yer husband doesna bother ye wi’ snoring, does he?”

“Wha- ah, no, I -”

“Would ye care for a drink? I’ve some horrible distilled nonsense in the back.”

Claire’s lids felt heavy as she tried to focus on Gillian’s face. “No, thank you. I think my body has finally caught up with the need for sleep. I’d best get back. I’ve got…” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “...three hours until wake-up. Don’t stay here all night.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve witchcraft on my side. G’night, Claire.”

The walls felt colder than usual as she traced an invisible line with her fingers on the walk back to her room. Perhaps it was cold outside. Up there. Would that matter all the way down here? She thought again of the clock. Those meaningless numbers dictating her life. It could be midnight. It could be midday. Would she notice if the world stopped turning?

* * *

 

Jamie hadn’t told anyone about the cave. About how he’d packed away matches and water filters, knives and rope, dried fruits and nuts and a toffee bar he’d found in the glove box of the Jeep.

He felt no guilt for it. Not when they all knew what would eventually happen. That they would be found some day. Not by the sickened locals (they were nearly all dead by now). But by the nomads. The packs of men and women (but mostly men) who killed their way across the desolate towns and lands, taking provisions, using them up, moving on. It was mindless and brutal. And Lallybroch would be quite a prize.

Jamie and Ian had seen them from a distance once while salvaging books from the abandoned library in Inverness. They’d filled their packs with electrical manuals, survival guides, local vegetation references, and a handful of post-apocalyptic young adult novels for entertainment.

The smell hit them first. Wafting in through the library’s shattered windows, cigarette smoke and sweat. They’d walked right below them, swinging their axes lazily and muttering gibberish. Not one of them was untouched by madness it seemed. It was the first time either he or Ian had witnessed humans who seemed...unhuman. Jamie hadn’t realized until that moment, that there was something that existed within people that spoke to fellow humans. A marker. A beacon. _We are the same._ It wasn’t until he witnessed the lack of such a thing that its existence was confirmed.

He’d go to the cave at first light to prepare.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank is involved in some strange activity. Jamie and his family prepare for the nomads. Claire uncovers some suspicious information.

He slid the desk away from the wall, careful not to scratch the floor. The pads of his fingers danced under the edge of the metal frame, feeling for the hollow space. _There._ The drive was no larger than his thumbnail. Slid into a pants pocket it was nearly imperceptible. Still, he never risked it.

Frank pressed the drive into a slot cut in a piece of foam, then rolled the foam in duct tape. He applied a small strip of adhesive to one side and carefully pressed it inside his pipe. He’d not smoked in years. Not since going underground, but he did love the feel of it in his mouth, working it with his teeth while he thought. It was ever-present in the therapy sessions he ran and tucked into his coat pocket at all times. He was The Professor.

His wrist buzzed. Ten minutes until Claire’s return. He tucked the pipe into the side of his mouth and stepped into the hall to complete his final assignment of the day. “H’lo David.” A nod to Caroline. A wink to Elsie because she blushes every time.

“Randall, cribbage tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

He was never this popular above ground. _Less competition down here._

He turned down a long corridor, past the storage rooms, where safety lights cast the walls in an eerie glow. The guard at the door leaned casually against the wall, offering a tight smile to Frank. “Janelle, tell me they haven’t left yet. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“You’re in luck.” She buzzed him through to the elevator where two men were adjusting their gear. Kevlar. Water packs. Health monitors. Stun guns. Metal crates stacked on hand trucks, ready to be wheeled into the armored vehicle awaiting them at the surface.

“Doc’s here. Time to act sane, Kyle.”

Frank laughed and leaned on the crates, carefully removing his pipe from his mouth and holding it at his waist. “Who wants to go first?”

He ran through the questions with them, keeping his movements hidden by the crates. Frank shined a small light in their eyes, while one hand plucked the drive free from the pipe. He wedged his nail under the end of the adhesive paper, uncovering the sticky top. His pinkie traced the edge of the crate until it found the letters: SGI. Three finger-lengths up, a notch just big enough to squeeze the wrapped drive in. A bit of pressure to ensure the adhesive holds.

“You’ve both passed. Godspeed, gentlemen.”

It took all of five minutes and Frank Randall walked back to his room thirty grams lighter.

* * *

 

Jamie, Jenny, and Ian had spent the evening gathering supplies, covering windows, checking the traps along the perimeter of the property. The air felt thin and still, an eerie pall cast over the night sky.

They’d gathered the children, explaining the situation and all nodded solemnly, already an impossible distance from the innocence of youth. The youngest, Ian, at eleven, perhaps looked at it with a bit more anticipatory excitement than the others. He’d earned a punch in the shoulder from his older brother when he’d gleefully asked if he’d finally be given a gun to use.

Sleep that night was light and fitful for all in the house. Hours later, Jamie found Jenny in the dim glow of dawn, wrapping root vegetables in cloth and pressing them tightly to the bottom of a rucksack.

“Did ye get any sleep?”

She turned to him and he saw the answer in the dark shadows below her eyes. “No’ much. Every time Ian moved, I swore the creakin’ was a foot upon the landing.”

Jamie held a hand out and she fell into her brother’s solid chest. He swallowed the cries churning through him, trying to hold it together a bit longer. Without letting go, he whispered into her hair, drawn tightly back into a bun. “D’ye have fuel in the Land Rover?” She nodded against his shoulder. “If there are too many, ye must go. There are people out there, fightin’ for this world to survive. Ye must find them. Promise me that if they overrun Lallybroch, that ye willna let them take ye too.”

She pulled back, looking at him with brewing fury. “And ye plan on stayin’ back to die yerself, is tha’ it? Buy us time to run while they tear ye apart?”

“No. We will fight them together. But if it comes down to it and ye don’t see me, ye must go. Ye protect yer family and trust that I can handle myself. I can live out here. I can find my way. Just...dinna hesitate when the time comes. Promise me.”

His throat had tightened, and the words strained to get out. Jenny’s face crumbled, and he sucked in a breath. _Damn everything._

He’d scarfed down cold parritch and an apple despite his nervous stomach, knowing he might not eat again for some time. He’d helped Jenny’s eldest load up the vehicle in the shed, securing the extra fuel tank in the back. The gas was old. He knew the Rover would start, but his greatest fear was that it wouldn’t hold out long enough for them to get far away.

Ian and the children would hunker down in the shed, to stay close to the Rover. Jamie and Jenny would handle the bulk of the weapons from the upper levels of the house. They’d plotted out six different ways to get out of the house that didn’t include the front door, mostly by belaying down rope out the upper windows. Ian had protested the arrangement but was forced to concede his prosthetic leg would hinder a fast escape.

Jamie stacked crates around the back of the house, scattered here and there to provide cover should they need to run. Resting a moment, he took in the orange glow of the sun lighting the dew atop the grass. This was the magical hour when his mother would grasp his tiny hand in hers and take him to the outbuilding to milk the goats. The dew would wet the tops of his boots, darkening the scuffed leather.

He’d bring a small tin cup and she’d aim the teat directly at it, having him stand back a bit to challenge herself and he’d giggle when she whooped at a successful shot. The taste of the sweet, warm milk gathered on his tongue again in the memory. Stinging tears wet his eyes and he shut them, fighting the pull to curl up inside the walls of his home and conjure the dreams that warmed his soul.

It hit him them, what he’d forgotten. He glanced to the shed where he saw hints of movement between the slats. They were still busily hiding supplies in the underground space. It would take him fifteen minutes to get to the cave if he ran all out.

His hands began to sweat, and his chest constricted. Was he having a panic attack? _Christ. I’m sorry, Jenny. I can’t leave it._ Certain no one was around, he took off toward the woods, clamoring wildly over wet rocks and tangles of roots twisting above the ground. He normally took a more even route, but he didn’t have time, so he’d need to deal with jutting rocks and hope he could vault over the stream without soaking himself too much.

Jamie scrambled up the edge of the rock below the cave entrance, narrowly avoiding a tree limb aiming for his face. He dropped to his knees in the dim mouth of the cave, catching his breath and pulling his sweat-dampened shirt away from his skin. He’d gotten everything he needed from the cave, but he’d forgotten his sporran.

Wrapped in a length of tartan and wedged in a crack in the darkest recess of the cave, he’d hidden it. Inside was his father’s ring, his mother’s pearls, and a wooden snake his brother had carved for him, just two years before he died.

That any children survive to adulthood often feels a miracle. Jamie had come so close in his youth to going under with a strong current, losing his footing scaling rocks, leaping from trees and nearly impaling himself on a fence post. The earth tilted and rolled to save his reckless body.

His brother told him he was protected by the Urisk, who watched from the crooked boughs of rowan trees. When he first found the cave, Jamie had scraped two intersecting lines into the stone floor with his axe, quadrants for each direction, and left offerings of cakes and berries, whatever he could spare with each visit.

_Why had the Urisk saved me and not Willie?_

His brother had gone hiking with friends. On the drive home, Willie took the brunt of the impact when the vehicle rolled, his head colliding with the sharp edge of the toolbox tumbling through the air with them. And though climbing didn’t kill his brother, Jamie’s father forever associated it with his death. With the unbearable misery of losing his son.

But it wasn’t defiance that led Jamie to mountaineering. It called to his blood as certainly as the dark walls of Lallybroch cradled his heart. But a ravine cracked and opened between him and his father when he began to climb. And one day he would find himself gasping on thin air, before the spitting fire of a mountain lodge, taking a phone call from Jenny telling him of his father’s last breaths.

Death swallowed his mother on the birthing bed, wrapped his brother in its cold embrace in the tumbling car, and drew his father to his knees on the steps of his own home. But these men, these menacing monsters roaming his land, would not carry death on their backs and settle in his home this day. He would not meet his end. He drew the pen knife across his fingertip, dripping blood on the marks in the stone. _Mother. Father. Willie. My own soul._

His finger throbbed beneath the bandage, matching his frantic heartbeat as he raced back home. Lallybroch was visible now through the thicket. _Almost there._

_Pop!_

A deep boom echoed through the hills after the explosion and he dropped to the ground, army-crawling over the wet leaves. Jamie scanned the windows of his home and saw no faces, no movement. He could hear them now. Distant, urgent orders. Scurrying. A pained yelling that was suddenly silenced. His stomach rose to his throat and his heart nearly stopped. He’d gut every last one if anything happened to his family.

The approach behind the house was too exposed so he crawled south toward the shed where the car sat. He wedged behind a rock and leaned around the edge. Four men stood in front of the house, seemingly unconcerned. Machetes hung at their sides. They exuded no fear. Four more men joined them, carrying large bags on their backs for raiding supplies. Jamie closed his eyes and hooked his finger through the carabiner hanging from his belt loop. _Shit. There’s too many._ _Please let them be ready in the car._

Five meters to the stack of crates he’d put together just an hour ago. He could run, if he knew they weren’t looking this way. If he knew no one else watched his direction. It would put him a third of the way to the shed.

Adrenaline ratcheted up his heartrate and pressed a fine sheen of sweat to the surface of his skin. The muscles in his legs twitched, imagining the burst from a crouch to a sprint. Time slowed as he adjusted, eyes scanning the men, waiting for them to turn.

They did turn. In unison. At the engine coming to life. At the doors swinging open and cracking off their hinges as the Rover burst through and gunned for them. Jamie could see the white skin of Jenny’s knuckles and little else as everyone in the car stayed below the windows.

_Go! Go go go!_ Jamie crouched down again, desperate that Jenny not see him. She’d stop if she did. She’d sacrifice all of them thinking she was saving him. He peeked over the rock just as she drove through the space where the men had been. The vehicle suddenly bounced high on its right side and he panicked for a moment thinking they’d blown a tire. He grabbed his knife readying to attack and halted when the Rover settled and revved ahead, leaving behind a body, rolling and tumbling until it skidded to a stop, unmoving. She’d gotten one. _Don’t stop! Keep going!_

The men roared, scrambling to their feet. Rocks flew at the vehicle, striking and cracking the back window. Jamie swallowed and fought back tears as the last thing he saw of his family was a tuft of Young Ian’s black hair sticking up in the cracked window.

It had happened so quickly, yet he couldn’t process what he must do. _Get up! Run!_ He couldn’t possibly fight them off. They still were distracted by the Rover so he grabbed his pack and darted back up the hill behind him, in full view of anyone who cared to look. His feet churned up turf and his muscles cried for oxygen.

Jamie ran until he stumbled at the stream, falling to his knees and cupping his hands in the cold water, gulping it hungrily. He was alive. For the moment. And only just. He couldn’t stop. He followed the water for an hour, keeping low at old abandoned homes along the way. When he might have taken refuge before, he couldn’t risk it now. Not knowing their numbers or their intent.

He ran for the better part of a day, a persistent stitch cutting into his side, his lungs burning and dry. Settling at the base of a steep rock face, he dropped his gear as the sun dipped into the horizon. It would be best to forgo fire this night, to be safe, but he set up the rain fly, not willing to risk everything getting wet.

Reclining against the rock, he let his head fall against it, listening to the chirping chorus of nocturnal creatures warming up for the night. This was his home now, the ground beneath him and sky above. There was no going back. The next chapter had begun.

* * *

 

“What microscopic discoveries have you made today?” Frank leaned back, stretching his muscles against the back of the chair. They’d opted to take dinner in his office for a little privacy.

She looked up at him, letting the strangeness of the day wash over her. Trying to determine what any of it meant.

Claire had been employed by SGI for five years. Her uncle had been utterly perplexed by her decision to study biochemistry and molecular biology, but she’d fallen in love with the way it challenged her mind. That, and the sheer exhilaration of discovery. Of giving hope to the people living with previously incurable diseases. And it was how she’d met Frank.

Frank was ten years her senior and had left the university’s psychology department the same year she started her post-graduate degree. A year later he’d returned as part of a study in conjunction with his new employer, St. Germain Inc. Ask random people what St. Germain Inc. does and they’d each give you a different answer. The company had become a behemoth in the last twenty years, with divisions in pharmaceuticals, energy, mining, plastics, medical tech, agriculture. You name it, they had their fingers sunk in it.

The study followed the university students and conducted psychological testing on how they studied, their theorizing, how their lives were conducted to maximize academic outcomes. Essentially, what type of person becomes a great scientist? From SGI’s viewpoint, what kind of person would be _their_ next great scientist?

Over the course of the months they worked together, Claire found herself drawn to Frank’s quick and curious mind, the two of them often staying up far too late coming up with ideas and challenging each other’s notions. He seemed nothing at all like the young men she had gone to school with. The reckless, shallow ideations of youth having long left him.

When she joined SGI, she marveled at the vision they presented. Polished and intelligent. It was only occasionally that she felt her own youthful exuberance dampened by his grey spirits. Disapproving looks over low-cut cocktail dresses. Her laugh too loud and her hands too familiar with other men and women when she drank too much.

But whatever annoyance those issues generated dissolved into nothing the instant the disease spread. In the moment everyone realized the world was falling apart, simply having another person next to you, helping you survive, felt miraculous.

In the warm glow of his office, she lazily swirled the spoon in her soup (potato and spinach), and a sad smile fell over her face. “Actually, the most interesting thing I saw today wasn’t under a microscope. I talked to a young boy - a child of a second level manager. He was at the lab next door for a blood draw and I sat with him. He told me he missed his friends. He said his family had forbidden him from seeing his friends after the disease became widespread. But he’d snuck out one day and ran to his friend’s house. He said he was thirsty after running there but didn’t ask for a drink because his dad told him he could never, ever drink water from anywhere but home or he would get sick. Does that seem odd to you?”

Frank eyes widened. “Yes, I’d say that’s notable. You think…”

Claire leaned forward across his desk and lowered her voice. “Before we went underground, I know there was talk of it possibly being waterborne. That would certainly be a fast way to move through a population. But it was never confirmed. No one I ever heard knew for sure. And believe me, we were working on determining just what it was. But this boy’s father seemed awful certain of it, don’t you think?”

Frank leaned forward, lowering his voice. “You think there were people at SGI who knew about it? Who perhaps knew things the health organizations didn’t?”

“I don’t know. So much of this is just a...gut feeling. I need to find out more.”

“Be careful, Claire. Upsetting things down here...they could send you away. I could not bear that.”

Claire nodded, her appetite gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A horrible event in the bunker turns Claire's world upside-down, Jamie faces life alone in the wilderness.
> 
> Gaelic translations:  
> [Cuidich mi = help me]  
> [Tapadh leat = thank you]

Gillian traced a line with her finger through the condensation on the metal cup, and perched her chin on her fist, peering back at Claire. “What’s on yer mind, Claire? And don’t say ‘nothing.’ I’m no’ that oblivious. What vexes ye?”

“Do I look vexed? I suppose that’s not far off.” Claire wiped a crumb from the side of her mouth and swallowed the last of her tepid tea. “I’m just wondering what’s happening up there. Do you ever wonder? Imagine what it all looks like? What’s become of the cities? Are there businesses still running despite it all? I don’t know. I just feel so blind down here. And I don’t think they’re giving us the whole story.”

Gillian snorted a cynical laugh which receded into a forgiving silence at the softness of her friend’s face. “No, we are certainly not getting the whole story. I imagine it is a great deal better _and worse_ up there than we can imagine. I saw walking nightmares before I got on that helicopter. As did you. Nightmares don’t often evolve into pleasant dreams on their own.”

Claire’s body heated with a kind of shame, irrational and misplaced, thinking of the helicopter. The nightmare. How her mind kept that moment on permanent loop, as if it wasn’t done with it just yet. As if there was a missing detail she needed to understand to unlock it.

“D’ye talk to yer man about it much? I imagine he hears all sorts of interesting stories from his sessions with the fortunate souls in this tomb.”

“Frank? He would never spill a word of his sessions. Far too principled for that.”

Gillian’s brow rose, teasingly. “The principled ones are always the ones with the most devastating secrets. What d’ye suppose he’s doing while yer avoiding sleep by staring at microbes in the lab late at night?”

Claire’s face creased in thought. “I’ve never thought about it, what he does when he’s not with me. I think we’ve grown a bit distant since coming down here. Ironic, that.” She ran her thumb along the top of the tea cup, her skin catching on the small chip in the porcelain. Quietly, she continued. “There is a part of Frank that I think I will never know. I’ll come up to these invisible walls sometimes, where I can’t really gather what he thinks, what his intentions are. It’s not distrust. I just think, with his job, to protect himself from his less stable patients, he’s hidden parts of himself away. And he doesn’t know how to remove that protection with me.”

“Hmmph. I’m sure you’re right, Claire.”

* * *

 

The icy water from the stream bit at first touch, sending bumps over his skin and tightening his muscles. Jamie had not particularly wanted to bathe just now, but he’d reached the limits of his own smell and was beginning to feel disturbingly itchy. He’d yelped as he lowered himself, ducking under the frigid, fast-flowing waters to soak himself thoroughly, scrubbing painfully in crevices and crushing some lavender to rub under his arms in a desperate hope to conceal his nervous sweat a little longer.

Invigorated by the cleansing, he crawled up the bank and jumped in place, running about, laughing at this naked, wild man he’d become, sending a smattering of small birds flying from nearby bushes. Sufficiently air-dried, he pulled on fresh clothes - only three variations in his pack - which did little to warm him. His trousers gapped at the waist and despite the chill, he turned his mind to other needs. Food first --then fire.

Jamie had kept a small bit of fishing line and hook in his pack and secured that to a stick which, miraculously, snagged a perch out of a shallow bit of the loch. It was a great deal stronger than he’d expected, the line nearly slicing his fingers as he worked to secure the catch. But it would make for a fine dinner, and his stomach clenched in anticipation. His body ached from a lack of calories, his muscles shaking after short climbs. A few more weeks and he’d be looking for creative ways to keep his trousers up if he didn’t find some supplemental food sources.

Cresting a small hill, he paused, struck immobile by the simple beauty of this place. A lone ragged oak dominated the valley below, its craggled limbs swathed in lichen, its years proudly stretching the whorled bark of its trunk. His life was nothing. His time, nothing. But he was alive. He was whole. And somewhere out there, his family survived.

Farther down the valley stood a dead tree, split by its own weight and lifeless center. This would burn well tonight.  He made his way to it, pulling the small hatchet from the hook on his pack. He’d already gathered a good deal of kindling.

Jamie tied the chopped wood in rope, slung it over his shoulder, and froze. The hairs on his neck rose, chased by a tingling up his spine. Eyes watched him. Slowly he turned back to the oak.

Shadows danced on its branches, a flickering creature hopping from limb to limb, watching through a veil. The Urisk.

He slowly dropped his pack to the ground and pulled out a stick from the kindling. He pressed the end of the stick into the ground and pulled it against the heavy earth. North to south, east to west. With no hesitation he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of almonds. His hand hovered over the center where the direction lines met, and he closed his eyes. “Cuidich mi.” The nuts fell from his palm and scattered.

Southwest. He would head southwest.

“Tapadh leat.”

Forty minutes passed with no promising shelter and despair began to color his vision. His body grew weary and a threat loomed in the darkening sky. And then, as Jamie emerged from a densely wooded hillside, he saw it. The house was decrepit and unsafe but had four walls and a roof. Perfect.

* * *

 

 

When he had a patient in his office, he flipped a sign on the door, deterring any interruptions. No sign today. Claire’s knuckles rapped lightly against the metal door. No answer. She tried the handle. Locked. “Where are you, husband?”

The halls were lit, but quiet. Most people hunkered down with afternoon work. She ought to be doing the same, but she couldn’t shake the question, hiding in the shadows of her mind. _Where does he go?_

She walked past the standard elevator doors, her feet following some invisible path it sussed out without her mind knowing. Five minutes later, she stood in the dim, industrial glow of the service elevators, unable to say why she was there. He was not there, but he had been. She could smell him. The faint, stale tobacco, lingering in the crevices of his pipe. _Why would he come here?_ She sat on a storage crate and dropped her head against the cement wall, closing her eyes. An answer floated just beyond her vision. Like the time before the bunker, she was missing something.

Outbreaks happen fast. Experimentation and interpretation and understanding do _not_ happen fast. By their very nature, they are meant to slow down the irrational, emotional impulses that drive people toward dangerous decisions. The years of work and trials to develop drugs, to understand disease, had played out in some kind of mockery over the weeks as people were swallowed by their own madness.

Claire had been unable to watch from the sidelines. She threw herself entirely into her work, sleeping on cots in the lab, waking with the murmurings of her fellow scientists’ theories floating through her mind. Behind the walls of this place, she felt outside it all, looking from an observation tower, as the afflicted cast themselves off bridges and into traffic. The fortress of the SGI compound outside Paris encased her in steel and glass and the quiet, reassuring beep of secure admittance through armored halls.

Frank was no different. He couldn’t resist the energy of the desperate few, setting aside their own desires, to face something great. He’d volunteered to stay on to see to the psychological well-being of the scientists and security personnel, piloting a well-check program to catch early signs of the disease.

He found Claire in the lab, shoulders tensed over her laptop

“They’re transferring us. Frank, did you see this?”

He’d hunched over her shoulder, reading the directive, feeling a flutter in his stomach. He’d put a soothing hand on her shoulder, squeezing and muttering reassurance that this was good. They would be protected.

His mind, meanwhile, was firing on all cylinders. They were being sent to a bunker. This was...impossibly good luck. For so long, they had tried to get in. Had lost operatives in the attempts. And now, in the midst of chaos, they were going to drop him right in.

“I’ll be back in just a minute. We’ll talk to Transportation and find out what the plan is. Stay here, okay?”

It was dangerous to push a signal through inside the building, but he had no choice. No time. They were going to be whisked away any second and he needed to get word out.

Frank sat at his desk and casually pulled out a notepad and pen. He tilted his head, rummaging in the drawer, in the likely event eyes were on him, and twisted the end of the pen until it popped open. Tapping it against the bottom of the drawer, a small roll of a film-like substance fell out. He quickly unrolled it and its surface shimmered. A triangle glowed in the corner. He had thirty seconds.

His finger pressed against the film, drawing out one letter at a time.

“WORM GO”

His finger shook, hovering over the edge of the film. The world was ending, and he was going underground. A deep breath and he pressed his finger to the glowing triangle until the light spread across the film. 3 - 2 - 1. He pulled his hand away as the surface burned, curling it into itself. A tiny puff of smoke, an acrid smell, and he wrapped it in tissue and pressed it deep into his pocket, hoping it was quite done burning lest his pants start on fire. Even Frank laughed a bit at that idea.

“Frank, they want us in the hangar in ten minutes.” She had pulled herself together so quickly. Composed and steely-eyed with a traveling scarf tucked fashionably inside the collar of her trench coat, as if they were late for reservations at a restaurant. God, he loved this about her. Her unflinching determination to do what must be done. His chest fluttered, a panicked spasm of self-loathing for every lie he’d fed her over the years. For the lies yet to come.

* * *

 

 

Another night of quiet shuffling through sterile halls. Of the persistent hum of the generators. Claire held a note under her breath, harmonizing with them, drawing a deep, thrumming symphony through her chest. She held the cup under the stream of steaming water, watching it darken as it soaked into the tea.

Suddenly the thought of sitting in the lab felt constrictive. She wasn’t often overcome by the claustrophobia of this place. Many others were. Frank kept quite busy talking people through the voices begging them to escape. But now, somewhere east of midnight, she wanted a bed of earth. Her skin ached for the tickling blades of grass against her neck. To swat an ant away. To watch dandelion fuzz drift lazily past her brows.

_Where does he go?_

She heard Gillian’s voice in her mind and let the question simmer. He wasn’t in their room. She could feel it. If she went back now, he’d be gone.

She found herself once again walking without seeing, until she rounded a corner near his office and ran straight into him. “Oh my god, Frank! You scared me! I was look -”

The words died as she took in his appearance. His already pale skin had taken on a yellow-ish hue, clammy and slack. Sweat beaded at his brow and he fell forward grasping Claire’s arm. “Claire…”

“We need to get to the infirmary. You look ghastly, Frank. Hold -”

“-No. No, please I’m okay, I just need to get back to the room.”

She looked into his eyes, glazed and bloodshot. He was certainly ill, but she had no idea what it could be. “Okay. Okay, we’ll go back. But if this doesn’t pass we need someone to look at you.”

They slowly made their way back to the room, Frank shuffling his feet over the concrete, his fingers tightening against her arm every few minutes.

She led him to her bed and gently pressed his shoulders to lie him down, but he protested, pushing her arms away.

“No, I need you... to get something. Desk…the back.” His breath grew increasingly labored and her eyes darted from him to the desk. He wouldn’t allow her to help until she’d retrieved whatever it was he wanted.

“Something on the back of the desk?” She pulled it away from the wall and its feet screeched against the floor as she swung it around to face him. “Okay? Now what?”

His shaking hand felt along the underside and stopped, his fingers grappling against the metal. The tiny drive, like the others he’d smuggled out, rested between his fingers. Claire stared at it uncomprehendingly. Before she could speak, he brought his hand to his chest, his eyes squeezed shut in agony.

Frank fell back against the mattress, his breath short and shallow.

“Frank! Goddammit! Frank, hold on, I’m going to get a doctor, okay? Just hold on, please.” Claire’s mind closed to the sensations and emotions of the moment, locking them in a box in the back of her mind. Help now. That was all that mattered. She ran from the room and the hallways narrowed in her haste, red lights blurring in her peripheral.

Dr. Kearn’s light was out, as were most at this hour. Claire’s fist rattled the door, the pounding punctuated by her voice. “It’s Claire Randall! I have an emergency!”

Time had begun to take on that surreal feeling. That slow, blurring confusion that occurs in the rush of adrenaline. It happened that day, with the helicopter. Would this day live on repeatedly in her dreams as well?

Running back into the room. Seeing Frank’s arm hanging limply over the edge of the bed. Pulling his heavy, lifeless frame to the floor and watching the doctor straddle him, palms cracking his ribs. It happened soundlessly, like the earth they were buried in had swallowed all their noises.

She remembers the way the skin of his cheeks rippled with each compression. And then she remembers nothing.

Claire hung her arm over the edge of the top bunk, slowly swinging it to and fro. Three days she’d been in this room. Trapping the smell of him, pretending the air hadn’t filled in the space where he had once been. She’d run out of tears and now just wanted to sleep.

Her fingers began to numb and she pulled her hand back up, settling on her stomach with her arms folded beneath her chin. It was dark in the room, but the door light illuminated just enough for her to notice something wedged into the metal frame of the bunk. She pulled the paper out, crumpled, with something hard in the center.

Claire sat up and turned on the bed light. She unfurled the paper, smoothing it out with her palm, and in the center sat the drive. The one he’d pulled from the desk. _God, I’d forgotten_. _He must have written the note after I left to get the doctor._ His writing was nearly incomprehensible, lines trailing down to nothing.

 

_zero Amelie op Scalamandre_

_Get out_

 

“What does this mean? What have you done, Frank?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire learns more about what might have happened with Frank and has to make a dangerous decision. Jamie discovers more about what's been happening in the cities.

She had begun to feel again, seeing the note. She felt her blood stir, her skin prickle, her mind race. Claire had lost three days to mourning and suddenly could not stomach a second more. She stripped and stepped into the shower, scrubbing her skin raw and running her fingers over every inch of her thin frame. She’d lost weight over the last two years, mostly muscle. She’d gone soft and complacent and it shocked her to feel so much anger.

Anger at herself, at Frank, at the shadow haunting her periphery.

Instinct had guided her to her studies, had led her to Frank, had compelled her to begin working at SGI. And somewhere along the way, she’d lost it. The clawing, fierce drive that sparked her mind, that sought passage through the morass of men and ego, fell to the earth in a shattered heap when the helicopter lifted off bound for the bunker. But an ember glowed still. She felt it warming her chest now.

Claire slid the button through at her wrist and squared her shoulders. It was nearly eleven. A few night owls glided through the halls but paid no mind as she headed for the labs. She couldn’t say what made her stop at the botany lab instead of her own. Hesitation would cost her the nerve to enter. She pressed down on the door handle, expecting resistance, and found none.

It smelled green and she nearly wept at the thought of the earth above, of open sky and life and the simple beauty of a breeze upon her face. That was another world. _No use conjuring it here._ She walked to the grow cabinets, glowing under a fine mist.

_Am I mad?_ At war with herself, with that ember begging for oxygen, she touched her fingertips lightly to the cabinet door, as if a magical being might appear and grant her some truth. The plants were aligned perfectly with the types written on stickers. No. Not types. Names. Gillian had given them names. Iris, Tyche, Atropos, Artemis, Demeter. “Goddesses, Gillian?”

The ember flared. Atropos. “Atropos isn’t a goddess…” Claire carefully slid the plant out. It had grown significantly since she’d last been in here with Gillian. Now it had berries filling it, though a number of them had been recently harvested. She turned the pot and her thumbnail caught on another sticker on the back. A computer-printed label with the actual name. _Atropos Belladonna_.

Blood rushed to her head with the sudden realization of what she held. _What did you do, Gillian?_ She had flirted with toxicology in school, caught up in the frenzy of interest in forensics. She’d spent enough time looking into it to know that one of the toxins tested for in autopsies was atropine--found in the berries of the Deadly Nightshade plant before her. A plant missing a dozen berries, which may be enough to slow a man’s heart until it stopped.

* * *

 

“A dhia, my heart! Whoever heard of getting heartburn from a potato? Worth it, though.” Jamie popped the last of the Rowan berries in his mouth and sucked the juice from his fingers. “Well, it didna take me long to begin talkin’ to myself.”

He’d lazed about in the run-down house for three days. It was time to move on, hard as that felt after the bountiful fishing and great fortune of finding a stray potato plant at the edge of a field. But hiding away would help no one and much as it frightened him, he had to head toward Edinburgh to see what had become of the world. To find his people, whoever they may be. To right the ship so his family might one day return home.

He was lonely, strange as that was to admit. He, who had run to the mountains to hear only his own echoing footfalls, to flee the expectations of his peers and the chiding remarks of his sister. But he’d become accustomed to the sounds again, when the family had huddled together to survive. Now, in the boundless earth rolling in all directions from him, he missed the walls of Lallybroch.

He missed the incessant chatter of the children plotting hide-and-seek spots and Young Ian’s too-loud voice startling them all in the quiet dawn. He missed the intimacy of speaking low with Ian, their elbows braced on the old desk in the office, wishing they had a whisky bottle hidden away somewhere. And he missed his sister’s breathless berating with a half-smile, teasing awake the ghost of his mother. He carried such memories in his pocket, aware they’d not stay contained.

Jamie pushed himself off the steps outside the house and stood. Reaching into his shirt pocket he pulled out four more berries, kept separate from the ones he’d eaten. With the jagged edge of a broken rock, he scraped two intersecting lines in the weather-beaten wood and placed a berry in each quadrant. “Keep them safe.”

* * *

 

The lab door clicked shut behind Claire and she leaned against it, swallowing the bile rising in her throat. _Had he been killed? Had Gillian done it? Why?_

_Get out._

He knew. Frank knew he’d been found out...and that she was in danger as well.

Claire had left the drive in the room and paranoia began to fester in her gut. Would someone know to look for it? What was he doing with it? He’d been near the service elevators. Meeting someone? Picking something up? Too many questions.

She pressed through the double doors back into the common area and drifted toward the voices in the lounge. Gillian’s laugh bubbled up over the others. Claire rounded the corner and was met with the uneasy silence that often attends new widows. The people at the table with Gillian, technicians she barely knew, looked at her pityingly and slowly slinked away.

“Mind if I join you?”

Gillian smiled sadly and gestured to the chair next to her. “O’ course not. I’ve been wonderin’ how ye’re farin’. It’s not easy.”

“Hm. No. Not easy. I’m...tired.”

There was a moment in the botany lab, seeing the missing berries, when the thought that Gillian had done it began to crystallize. The way she so casually talked of her own husband’s passing sent shivers down Claire’s spine. But then the note from Frank… It was bigger than the whim of one person. Was she being directed to stop him? Frank knew he was in danger. He knew something. Too much.

“Ye’ll find yer way out.”

Claire snapped her head up, her thoughts jolted by Gillian’s words. “What?”

“Ye’ll find yer way out. Out of the darkness. Ye’ll get back to your old self and ye’ll survive this.”

“Oh. Yes.” The way Gillian looked at her, unwavering and sly, rattled Claire. Something was going on and she began to wonder if she was going mad with grief. Every word felt loaded. “I wonder how I will.”

“Well, my advice is to not wallow in it. Grief will swallow ye whole and the longer ye wait, the harder it will be to climb out. And sometimes ye need to be _someone else_ to break free. Ye may need to push yerself, gather yer courage. But it can be done. And I’ve no doubt yer capable, Claire.”

_Ye’ll find yer way out._

Back in the room, Claire found herself pacing, a nervous energy buzzing on the surface of her skin. “This is madness.” _Is it possible to be aware of losing your own sanity?_ But here she was, facing a realization that solidified before her. She was in danger and she needed to find a way out of the bunker. Frank was warning her. There was no doubt of that. But her mind returned to Gillian. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had been involved in Frank’s death, and yet her words were sincere.

The mattress sunk under Claire’s weight and she unwrapped the note for the hundredth time. “Amelie...Scalamandre.” She could think of no one in the bunker with that name, nor recall Frank mentioning it. Was there an Amelie at SGI? No one she worked with, at least. _What is this?_

When she and Frank had first begun spending time together at university, they’d spend hours working on logic puzzles. The beauty of the puzzles was it required you to strip away the complicated, extraneous notions of human intent. All of the non-verbal cues and assumptions and variables that go into deciphering another person are unnecessary in logic. But it was remarkably difficult to let go of them to simplify how a problem could be solved.

What was the note on the most basic level? Information and direction. She didn’t understand the information...but she wasn’t meant to. The direction - that she understood. He didn’t say “find this person.” He said “get out.”

“How the fuck do I get out?”

At dinner she watched the cafeteria workers prepare her food, her eyes unblinking. _Oh, just making sure you’re not adding poison. Perfectly normal thing to do._ She mumbled acknowledgments to her friends’ inquiries, but her mind wandered far away. Escape.

She’d walked through every available corridor after dinner, noting the security cameras, the lighting, the angles of visibility. The only way out that seemed remotely feasible was the service elevator. Where Frank had been. It had to mean something. But there was security. A guard at all times with a list of cleared personnel, mostly the transporters, bringing supplies to and from the bunker. _Pardon me, could I hitch a ride just to get a little Vitamin D for a moment?_

More than a little defeated, she returned to her room, kicking her shoes off inside the door and stretching her arms above her head. Perhaps the answer to how she could get out of the bunker would come to her in her sleep.

In such a small room with so few objects, it seems unlikely something new would go unnoticed. But she was not her usual observant self. And it wasn’t until she’d turned on her side, nestling under the blankets, that she spotted the package on the desk.

Another minute shaved off her life as the adrenaline coursed through her. She leapt from the bed and steadied herself against the back of the chair as blood rushed from her head. _How the hell did I not see that?_

It had definitely not been there when she left the room earlier in the day. Her hands shook as she carefully pulled the end of the plastic bag open and peered in to see...a backpack. _What?_ She pulled it out and unzipped it, pulling out the items inside: An SGI uniform, a pair of black hiking boots, and a small bottle of tablets. A note was tucked into a boot.

 

_Transporters 3 pm Thursday departure_

_30 minutes prior 5 tablets dissolved in their water_

_Break room 2 doors down_

 

“Jesus.”

_And sometimes ye need to be someone else to break free._

* * *

 

The trees grew increasingly dense as Jamie descended over the ridgeline, aiming for the creek running through the valley below. He needed some water and to find a spot for shelter. He could smell the rain threatening to fall from the heavy clouds ahead and picked up his pace to get on more even ground.

There was movement through the trees - animals, and a good size. Jamie crouched, taking careful steps until he stilled behind a large tree trunk. Peering around it to the open grass, a silly smile grew on his face. Sheep. Their heads raised as he neared the stone fence and he nodded, feeling a bit silly. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled to them, “Rain’s comin’! Ye’d best head home!”

He continued along the fence line and hopped over it, heading toward the creek. His steps halted abruptly as the sheep suddenly huddled together and started moving toward him. “The hell?” His confusion abated as a sheep dog streaked around the outside, as if she had an invisible lasso around them. The mass turned south and began moving as one.

A distant roll of thunder brought his attention back to his own predicament. Shelter. He began scanning his surroundings, looking for the best direction to go and stopped. Rarely was he so oblivious to not notice another’s approach, but now he found himself standing not three meters from a man. The stranger’s face was stone. Like most humans since the outbreak, he’d learned to guard his humanity. Jamie would need to prove himself harmless or meet violence. That was the new way of it.

Jamie slowly raised his hands, though the man held no weapon. “I’m just passin’ through. I’ve nothing. Just lookin’ for shelter.” He raised his chin to the impending rain. “I’ve no intention of harmin’ yer herd.”

The stranger, a weather-beaten man of around fifty, crinkled his eyes, surveying Jamie’s state. Measuring him with whatever he could. “Where ye from?”

“North. Near Broch Mordha. But my home is gone. Taken.” His voice broke on the last word, the helplessness and shame of that loss had been buried deep, and saying it aloud cracked something open in him.

Perhaps it showed on his face, the weariness of a broken man. “Yer name?”

“Jamie.”

“Drew.”

“Pleasure, Drew. I havena spoken to another person in...too long.”

Drew looked after the sheep which were nearly over the next hill, the dog darting between them. “House is that way. Can give ye a spot in the barn if ye wish. Fer tonight.”

Drew had promised little and delivered more. Jamie found himself at a table with Drew and his wife, Abigail, and two teenage sons, lit by candles as the storm darkened the skies. His throat constricted as Abigail placed the lamb stew before him and he nearly wept at the smell of it.

“Where are ye headed then?” Drew asked.

“Edinburgh to start. Inverness is a ghost town. Hoping that’s not the case there, too.”

Drew and Abigail looked at each other with furrowed brows. She set down her spoon. “No, it’s not a ghost town. Do you not know what’s happened to the cities?”

“No. I -”

“There’s business, trade. But it’s not the same. There’s...it’s all taken over, run by them. The systems fell apart. Too many people got sick, so they came in. Took over. There’s men who thought they owned a business and find themselves now with the doors locked, no access to goods, lest they sign contracts with them.” Drew looked at Abigail, opened his mouth to speak, and thought better of it.

Jamie failed to grasp what they were saying. “Who? Who’s ‘them’?”

Drew looked at Jamie pityingly. “SGI. They showed up with security forces first, set up medical checkpoints, cleaned up the mess from the sick. And then they stayed for good. They own half the cities in Europe, from what I hear.”

Jamie shook his head in disbelief. Those three letters emblazoned on the side of the helicopter, stitched into the sleeve of the man who dropped the woman like she was no more than a barnacle slowing down the ship. “What of the government?”

“Oh, they’re still there. They stepped aside when SGI offered to help.”

The storm blew through and left an eerie orange twilight in its wake. Jamie wrapped the wool blanket over his shoulders and nestled into the hay. His body felt boneless, heavy with fatigue from the last few weeks, from never being warm enough or fed enough. Now that he had a belly full of food, he wanted to sleep for days. If only his mind would settle.

Drew’s news of the cities had thoroughly unsettled him. He shivered from a creeping unease despite the seemingly hopeful confirmation that things were stabilizing under SGI surveillance. It was not the world of before. The illusion of safety they’d built their lives around was gone, replaced by an unknown. A faceless corporation whose intents could only be imagined.

* * *

 

 

Claire used two weeks’ worth of credits on the vending machines, never too much from one machine, crossing her fingers that no one monitored purchases. She’d watched the transporters from afar, tucked into a shadowed corner of the long hall leading to the elevators. The way they came and went, their demeanor, how long they stayed in the break room.

She’d hoarded vitamins and committed her first real crime by stealing someone’s water bottle from the cafeteria. A lighter they kept in the lab also found its way into her pocket. Oatmeal packets, salt packets. More oatmeal packets. And the note with the drive.

Madness.

Claire pulled the door to her room closed behind her one last time. She couldn’t risk walking all the way to the break room in the uniform - too many possibilities for recognition. Instead, she tucked the clothes under her arm and headed for the bathrooms away from the commons area. Hair pulled tightly back, she looked quite different. It wouldn’t fool someone who knew her well, but it might be enough for someone who didn’t see her often. It would have to be enough.

The two men leaned back in their chairs, feet leisurely resting on the table, as she walked in. They quickly swung them to the ground and straightened their shoulders, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Oh, sorry to disturb you. I’m just starting training today. You gentlemen must be the transporters. I’m Julia.” She stuck her hand out and they instinctively shook it in turn.

“I’m Kyle. This is Steve. Uh, we didn’t get any orders about training someone.”

“Oh, seriously? Typical. I knew they’d screw it up. If you want to run down to the administrator’s office, they probably have the orders. I can just wait here.”

This would only work if both of them went and she breathed deep, trying to quell her rising panic. If one stayed she couldn’t get to their drinks to drop the tablets in. More importantly, she’d be found out as a fraud and she couldn’t begin to contemplate what that would mean.

“All right, we’ll be right back. Just sit here, okay?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

_Christ._ She peeked out the door after a few seconds, watching them round the corner to the long hallway back to the offices. Unwrapping the tablets, she quickly dropped them into the waters they’d left sitting at the table. Her heart thundered in her chest and she begged them to dissolve faster.

One last trick. Two bags of snack mix with just enough salt to get them drinking. Their footsteps grew louder down the hall.

“They must’ve just closed up. So, we can’t take you all the way up with us without the orders, but we can take you in the elevator and just show you the basics before we go up if that works for you.”

“Yes, no problem. That would be great.”

“What’s this?” Steve inquired. They both grinned at the snack bags on the table.

“Oh, I thought you might like a little something before heading out.”

“Ah, she knows how to do this training business right. Well played, Julia.”

They dug into the snacks and had soon finished their waters and she watched as their limbs grew clumsy, their eyes unfocused. _Almost there._

“Excuse me for a moment. Just going to use the restroom.”

Claire slipped out the door and peeked behind the trash bin down the hall. Her backpack was there, ready. _Okay. Please work._ She cautiously walked by the open door of the break room and saw Steve slumped over the table, Kyle lying on the floor. Her heart beat harder than she’d ever felt before, sweat beading on her brow.

Speeding up her steps, she ran to the guard outside the elevator door. “Excuse me, I’m supposed to be training today and the two transporters...there’s something wrong with them.”

“Shit. Are they sick?”

“I don’t know…”

The guard took off and Claire had not a second to lose. She darted down the hall to the trash bin and pulled her backpack out, racing to the open elevator door. Eight large crates sat in the elevator and she turned to the door. Six buttons. “Is the top level one or is it six? Fuck.” Wrong guess and it’s over.

“Hey!” The guard was running toward the elevator, clearly aware something was wrong. Claire slammed her hand against the button for level one and pressed her back against the crates, praying the doors closed before the guard reached them.

She watched as the last slivered view of the bunker disappeared behind the door and pressed her hands to her chest, trying to hold her heart in. The elevator shook as it ascended then stopped and when the doors opened, she felt blinded. “Oh my God.” The smell of it nearly brought her to her knees. The earth, the wind, the pine. Her exultation was cut short by the truck that slowly backed up to the open elevator doors.

Ducking down, Claire squeezed around the crates and inched toward the open door. The radio in the truck crackled.

“ _...attacked them...dangerous...apprehend her._ ”

“Fuck.”

No time to think. No time to consider where to go. Just go.

Claire grabbed the edge of the elevator and vaulted herself around the side, scrambling up a rock face. The truck door slammed behind her, but she didn’t bother stopping to look. The only thing that mattered was getting distance between herself and this place.

She ran, her boots kicking up clods of soil, wet from the rains. Her lungs took deep gulping breaths, invigorated by the fresh air, and her body sang, powered by fear and open skies.

* * *

 

In the bunker, Gillian sat before a monitor, watching security camera footage of Claire racing into the elevator.

“Good luck, Claire. Sorry about Frank.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire flees SGI and encounters something unexpected.

Adrenaline propelled her through a thicket of trees, sharp limbs snagging on her, snapping against her face. She couldn’t afford to look back, to lose her momentum or risk stumbling, and a scream echoed inside as she imagined them closing in. _Keep going._ A living flame, her lungs burned and her muscles stretched tight, begging for more oxygen. That sound she heard was her own voice, a whimper punctuating each desperate footfall. 

Half-sliding down a hill, Claire’s feet skidded in the wet grass. Her backpack thudded incessantly against her lower back. _How long have I run? How can I run before my body collapses and they descend upon me?_

Her muscles began to cramp. Her side, then her legs. She needed water and rest. A thick, heavy tree afforded shade and she fell against the trunk, stilling herself to listen for any signs of her pursuers. No sounds, save the whistle and crackle of leaves caught in the wind, and a crossbill singing above her. She slumped, her breathing finally slowing and took careful sips from her canteen, letting the cool water run slow down her burning throat.

The minutes ticked by and she began to take in her surroundings. The rough, dramatic land rose and fell around her. The last time she had any sense of direction was when she ran from the hospital in Inverness to the helicopter, her last dreadful moments before the earth fell away.

She couldn’t be too far from Inverness. South seemed the sensible direction. Frank’s watch was clasped snuggly over her wrist. She removed it and held it flat in her palm, then slowly turned until the hour hand faced the sun, only a hint of it visible through the clouds. “South should be…” She moved her other hand, pointing to the space between twelve and the hour hand. “...that way.” A nifty trick she’d picked up from her days traveling with her uncle on archaeological digs. A smile grew on her face imagining what he’d say if he saw her now.

As she strapped the watch back on her wrist, a gust of wind blew stray strands of hair over her face and she peeled them away. How strange, to suddenly be thrust into the world that she’d dreamed of for so long. To have all the elements immediately and boisterously making themselves known to her senses. Her heart sped up and vibrated in her chest.

_No._

_That’s not my heart._

She looked to the skies, panic flooding her veins, but saw no signs of the helicopter. Not yet. She needed cover. And if they had thermal cameras, she needed to mask her body heat. Claire pulled the backpack tight against her shoulders and took off again, now keenly aware of the blister forming in her boot. She ran toward the stream. It carved through a gully and that might have enough of an overhang, something for her to press under.

The water widened as the earthen walls grew around her. Her hopes were dashed as she realized it was a sheer face along both sides. Nowhere to hide. The stream curved and widened again, picking up volume as another stream joined it, carving through a copse of trees.

The sound of the helicopter grew louder until she was certain it would appear over a hill at any moment. And in the moment that happened, she skidded to a stop on the edge of a flat, slippery rock. Not because she’d given up. But because she stood at the top of a waterfall.

“Shit! No!”

Her feet were already wet, boots slowly soaking through with water. She couldn’t very well just go over. Not with jagged rocks jutting in all directions. She was trapped.

The helicopter circled around the hill behind her. They hadn’t yet spotted her. Her feet began to chill in the icy water.

“That’s it.” The cold. If she could get to the bottom, get behind the waterfall, the cold and rock might be enough to hide her heat. It would be awfully difficult to get the helicopter in a position to locate her in any case.

A branch hung from a sharply angled tree, growing out of a split in the rock. If she clung to the branch, she might be able to lower herself down to the first shelf. Assuming she didn’t slip. Or lose her grip. In which case she’d be horribly injured or dead. _Great. Okay._

Claire wrapped a scarf around her hands to help with her grip and grasped the branch, carefully lowering herself onto the rocks, though they provided little foothold. She was inches from the rushing water. She dropped a meter. Two meters. Her arms shook with the effort to hold on, the backpack threatening to pull her down. A smaller bit of branch broke off in her hands and she slid down, sending her heart into her throat. Her feet caught on a rock ledge, but half her body was now directly in the waterfall stream, soaking her through, freezing her muscles.

Looking down, she saw no more footholds. Just a straight drop into the water. The helicopter grew louder, swaying the branches of the trees just above the waterfall. They’d see her in seconds. No time.

The backpack would sink her if it was too deep. She’d shatter her legs if it was too shallow. And she’d be captured if she stayed on the ledge a minute longer. Claire pulled the backpack off and held it in front of her, ready to let it go if it was too deep. And then she took a great breath and jumped.

* * *

 

 

The air thrummed with the beat of the blades. Jamie couldn’t see it, but the very thought of it chilled his blood. He’d seen the type of men in them before, had witnessed their merciless violence. And after learning of SGI’s power grab, he had no interest in catching their eye. Tucked under a rocky outcropping, he waited until the sound dissipated into nothing, until only the symphony of the wilds around him filled the air.

He’d walked many miles after leaving Drew’s house at dawn and his entire body ached for food and rest and a fire. His eyes grew wide as he broke through the tree line. “And maybe a shower.”

Jamie didn’t necessarily need to bathe. He’d been in much worse states before, but the thought of standing below the pummeling cold water, every rushing droplet pressing into his weary muscles, was too wonderful to pass up. He dropped his pack on a sun-warmed boulder and pulled off his shirt. The roar of the water invigorated him before he even stepped in it. He dipped his shirt in the water and rubbed it against the rock, working out whatever filth he could manage, then wrung it out and draped it over the rock to dry. Socks next. Then pants. If the wind kept up its pace, they ought to dry reasonably quickly, even with the sun fading.

Jamie eased into the water, sucking in air at the frigid temperatures. It dropped in depth quickly, but went no higher than his chest. He laughed as he ducked his head under the falling water, at the almost painful splatter of it on his scalp, and he remembered the feel of his brother tossing buckets of water over his head when they got too filthy to enter the house. _Yer caked in what I can only imagine is manure and I’ll not have it in my house. It’s bucket baths for the two of ye!_ His mother would admonish them sternly than laugh away at their antics while they tried to clean themselves out front of the house.

He dove under and swam behind the falls, where a thin rock ledge rose up from the water. Leaping up, the water now waist high, Jamie shook himself like a dog, sending droplets in every direction, then brushed the water from his face and pushed his hair back. He opened his eyes and as they slowly adjusted to the dim light he froze, his arm hovering over his hair. His breath caught, paralyzed by fear at the unexpected presence of a woman, huddled in the corner, dripping wet and shivering.

She looked as surprised to see him as he was to see her and they both stared at each other for a moment, uncertain of their next moves. Slowly he dropped his arm, suddenly aware of his nakedness. “I’m sorry. I… are ye hurt?”

She sat curled in on herself, hugging her knees, leaning against a backpack tucked against the rock. She didn’t speak, but shook her head. A wavy line of blood ran down her hand, but it didn’t seem to be too deep.

Jamie’s body began to shake as the cold water chilled him. “I need to get out o’ this water. Freezin’ my bollocks off here.” He laughed awkwardly. She flinched, thinking he meant to get onto the ledge with her. “No, I… my clothes are on the bank.” His eyes fell to her fingers, bone white knuckles wrapped around her ankles, her entire form shaking. “Ye’re turnin’ into an icicle before my eyes. That helicopter, it was lookin’ for ye then?”

She only stared back at him.

“It’s gone now. I ken ye’re worrit, but ye’ll freeze to death in here. Ye’ve got to risk comin’ out so ye can dry off and warm up. I need to find decent shelter for the night myself and I wouldna feel right leavin’ ye alone, not in yer present state.”

Something in her face changed. It softened and quivered, broken, tired, and cold. And he could see a glimmer of trust behind her eyes. She nodded.

“I’m Jamie.”

“Claire.”

She pulled her wet backpack onto her shoulder and looked helplessly at the water.

“Do ye…-”

“What?”

“Weel, I was thinkin’ it’d be best for ye to not get soaked again.”

“Agreed, but I don’t think I can leap to the bank from here. Haven’t worked out walking on water just yet either.”

He grinned, happy to hear her joking. “Nay, but if ye sit upon my shoulders I think I can get ye over wi’ out much trouble.”

“You want me to...ride you?”

Claire could detect a blush rising on him, despite his pale, goosebumped skin. “Mmph. Aye.” He pointed to his shoulder and nodded.

_Right._

She rolled up her pants as high as she could, tied the laces of her wet boots together and hung them around her neck, then pulled her backpack over her shoulders. Jamie slowly moved to the edge of the shelf where she sat and turned around so she could sit on his shoulders.

He stumbled a bit then steadied as she adjusted her weight on him. He held a hand up. “Take my hand so ye dinna slip off.”

She grabbed his hand, somehow warmer than her own, and squeezed tightly. _Is this really any crazier than anything else I’ve done today?_ He began walking, taking slow steps with a wide stance. The water deepened as they neared the falls and Jamie pressed against the rock wall to try to keep them out of most of the downpour. Another stumble as they passed by the falls surprised them both and she instinctively grabbed his hair with her other hand, pulling it like a horse’s reins.

“Oof! Careful, Sassenach,” he grunted.

Claire loosened her grip. “Sorry.”

“Almost there.”

Jamie leaned forward, his hands braced against the rocks of the bank and Claire rolled off his shoulders onto the damp grass. She turned back to him and looked expectantly at him, waiting for him to crawl up. He looked sheepishly back at her and nodded at his clothes drying on the rock. “Would ye?”

“Oh! Yes.”

She scrambled over to his shirt and pants, not spying any underwear, and set them on the driest spot she could find near the bank. “I’ll just…” She pointed to a tree by the edge of the falls and settled herself behind it.

Jamie jumped onto the bank once she’d turned away and flapped his shirt in front of his body, trying to dry off as much as possible, then pulled his clothes on, yanking on the fabric as it stuck to his wet skin. “Decent now.”

Claire came out from behind the tree and really looked at him for the first time, having been too shy to let her eyes linger behind the waterfall. He looked a good deal larger with his pack on his back. Water dripped from ringlets of hair onto his shirt collar, darkening it to a steel grey. “Do you have an idea where we can go?”

“For tonight? No. But, we’ll find somewhere to keep ye safe.” He’d noted the SGI logo on her sleeve, but considering her attempts to evade notice, it seemed unlikely she was a threat to him. She clearly had bigger worries.

Claire kept her boots hanging around her neck as they began to walk, carefully stepping through the tall grass in her bare feet. It was cold, but the boots would take hours more to dry. They spoke little as they walked, both tired and cautious.

A quiet pact had formed between them. The relief of companionship embracing the uncertainty of the unknown. Trust grew from necessity. Survival now depended on shelter and heat. Words could come later.

They walked for an hour and the air began to cool as the sun fell low in the sky. Claire stopped shivering, but she felt terribly weak and a deep chill pushed into her extremities.

Jamie halted at the base of a tree, just inside the edge of a wooded glen. “I think we canna build a fire tonight. Not if they’re still near lookin’ for ye. But we’re sheltered from the winds here. And there’s deep enough grass we can burrow in a bit and huddle together for warmth.”

His matter-of-fact tone brooked no concerns of ulterior motives. Claire swallowed her nerves and nodded. “Right. Not really other options I suppose.”

“I’ll set up the fly in case it rains. See what we’ve got for food.”

He turned and knelt before his pack on the ground, pulling out provisions and camping gear. Claire watched him for a moment, taking in the practiced movements of a man who’d lived in the wild for some time. She silently vowed to not be burdensome.

“Jamie.”

He turned his neck, a questioning glance over his shoulder.

“Thank you.”

His eyes crinkled at the edged and a smile, tinged in sadness, pulled at his cheeks.

She’d pulled everything out of her pack, draping her clothes over tree limbs. The backpack hadn’t completely soaked in the jump, but enough water had seeped in to dampen the lot of it. Jamie offered her a sweater and some wool socks and she began to feel her body slacken, relaxing as it no longer had to fight to warm itself.

He’d grinned gleefully at her oatmeal packets and gasped audibly when she unwrapped a chocolate bar after they’d eaten.

“A little thank you for the ride.” She couldn’t help the smile that grew on her face at his exaggerated sounds of pleasure as he took his first bite. He held it out to her and she shook her head. “No, it’s for you.”

“Only sharing from here on out, Sassenach. What’s mine is yours. That’s how we survive this.”

She nodded and took a small bite. “What does it mean, what you called me?”

He’d settled near her, tucking his legs under himself, and picked a leaf from his boot lace as he contemplated his answer. “It’s no’...I dinna mean it to insult ye. Just a word for an outsider, seein’ as ye’re English.”

Claire swallowed, and let herself breathe for a moment, smelling the heavy, wet earthiness around her. Outsider. A peculiar lightness filled her senses. He met her eyes when she spoke. “We’re both outsiders now, I suppose.” She lifted a teasing brow and plucked a wildflower from its stem, offering it to him, as if she hadn’t just met him while running for her life.

He grinned back at her, dipping his head to laugh. “Aye, that we are.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire and Jamie get to know each other and run into some uncomfortable truths

No dreams took hold of Claire’s mind. It was only the hard, heavy sleep of the weary. Fear had swept her away in a river of adrenaline and the crash had been swift, her vision drowsily blurring as Jamie laid out a tarp on the ground to keep their warm bodies from waking dew-soaked. She’d absconded from the bunker with a thin blanket and relied on that, along with an underlayer of yoga pants, to seal in what little heat she had.

Sometime past midnight Claire woke to the sound of a small animal stalking through the grass nearby. And as her eyes adjusted to the blue light, the moon’s glow cutting edges on the swaying leaves, casting shadows through the glen, she found her sight hampered by the arch of Jamie’s back. Had he nestled in next to her when he lied down, or had she inched her way toward him unconsciously, seeking his heat?

In any other circumstance, she’d have discreetly moved away. Now, she’d happily swallow any embarrassment to not lose the pocket of warmth swirling between them.

He made sounds when he slept, little whimpers, almost like speaking. Silent on the inhale, whispers on the exhale. How was it that she felt so at ease next to him, knowing nothing of him, other than their shared purpose of survival? Perhaps not nothing. His insistence on helping her from the waterfall spoke of his honor and selflessness. What of his presence in these wilds? Did that speak of bravery? Would someone think so of her? Will he think her mad when he learns her story?

When next she woke, it was with cool air caressing her face. She sat up and massaged the ache from her neck, cramped from holding one awkward position most of the night. Stillness greeted her, though no Jamie. His pack lie unzipped a few feet away, so he’d likely not gone far. She sat up and stretched, running her fingers through her curls, now sprung wild from the damp night air, and smiled, imagining the face he’d make when he saw her.

His approach was heralded by the crack of fallen branches underfoot and the panicked flight of birds from the trees above them. He had a water bottle and a small spade in his hand. “G’mornin’, Sassenach.”

“Good morning,” she squeaked. Claire cleared her throat and said, “Let’s try that again. Good morning.”

He huffed a small laugh and squatted to dig through his pack.

“Where did you run off to with that?” she gestured at the spade.

He stared at it for a moment and glanced at her shyly. “Well, I… I wasna sure when we’d find proper facilities, so I had to make do with a hole in the ground.”

It took her a moment. Five full seconds as she later recalled. Her skin flushed, embarrassed for asking. “Right, sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No, ye shouldna apologize. I should ha’ mentioned I have this should ye have need of it yerself. Whenever ye feel… well, just ask. It’s no worry. We’re livin’ rough. No use pretending otherwise, aye?”

She smiled at him, shaking her head at the absurdity of the moment. “It was close quarters in the bunker. Took a bit of getting used to.”

“How was it ye ended up in there? Ye work for SGI then?” Jamie sat crossed-legged and laid out a kerchief on the ground where he dumped some dried fruits and nuts. Breakfast. He nodded for her to join him.

Claire scooted toward him and took a few dried apple slices. “I worked in their labs in France when things started to fall apart. They took us there, to a bunker that I think they’d built for seed samples and research. My husband was the resident psychiatrist, keeping everyone happy to be trapped.” Her voice trailed off, not having spoken of him to anyone other than Gillian. The weight of sorrow in speaking of him surprised her, threw off her balance. All that was lost in the last few days suddenly rose over her, blotting out the sun.

Jamie reached his hand out to her, resting his fingers lightly on her knee. She merely stared at him, shaking imperceptibly. “Did something happen to him?”

Claire’s face rippled under his gaze, her breath caught on the sob building in her chest. “Yes. He’s… I believe he was killed.”

Jamie squeezed her knee. “God, Claire. Is that why ye ran from there? Is that… is that why they’re after ye?”

The worry in his voice undid her; all the tension buried under the distraction of running now flooded her veins, and she collapsed under it, the tears spilling over her cheeks. Her vision blurred until she found herself curled in on him, her face buried in his neck. His palms circled her back and his voice drifted over her, Gaelic murmurings to keep the pain at bay. And she took from him the solace of his solid warm presence.

When she pulled away, pressing her palms to her eyes, his face came to her in starbursts. His flesh was stubbled and raw from the elements, pink and freckled and alive. To give trust to him now was an illusion. It had already been given, whisked from her broken form as he emerged from the water. As she crawled onto his shoulders and grasped his fingers, her trust had dripped from her skin to his. It was done.

“He knew something, and they killed him.”

“Who are ‘they’? SGI?”

“I don’t have proof of anything. I found out Frank was stealing information, spying or something. I don’t know. I never had the chance to ask him.”

“How is it ye ken he was spying?”

“He left a note for me, and a small drive of some kind. I don’t know what it means, but he told me to get out. He knew I would be in danger, just by association with him. But I don’t have any clue what his note means, who to contact for help. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Her voice cracked, and she shuddered, steadying herself. She had to tamp the emotions down if she was going to make it. She needed her senses sharp. And in the back of her mind, a niggling fear settled, that she’d said too much.

Frank had not trusted her. Had lied to her about what he was doing. How long had he been doing it? Had it always been lies? And yet, there was something real. Had been at least. She’d loved him once. And he’d loved her. It was simple in the beginning. But the more she let her grief stir up her memories, the more she realized how dramatically things did change once they got to the bunker. How easy it had been to pass it off as adjusting to a new, strange life. But it never settled back. He was gone, more than he ought to have been. Their conversations were shallow and distant, a recounting of the goings-on in the levels, work, schedules. And at some point, the fact that he hadn’t touched her beyond a peck on the cheek since arriving disappeared into a dark room in her mind, tucked away with all the other lost things.

“Is there someone ye can go to, family ye can contact when we get to Edinburgh?”

The pity in his voice stung, triggering a flash of anger. To have been played a fool by her husband, to have her safety stripped away through no fault of her own, she would not now become someone’s simpering woman needing saving. “You needn’t concern yourself. I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t press the matter, noting her change in mood, and they gathered up their belonging to begin the day’s trek. The sky hung heavy with clouds that shifted and groaned, threatening to let loose. The trees disappeared, and they found themselves braced against the wind. Jamie moved closer to her, elbows bumping as they hiked over the rolling hills. They talked of the time before, Jamie of his climbing excursions, Claire of the early days of her career, when the excitement of a funded project was wind in her sails. It was the safe, pleasant talk of the newly acquainted. For them, it was an injection of normalcy in an otherwise bizarre situation.

The day was grueling, and they soon fell into silence, saving their breath for their burning muscles and concentrating only on the uneven ground beneath their feet. Jamie slowly pulled ahead, his strides longer and feet more sure of the dips and bumps in the earth. There was a bend to his shoulders that belied his confident demeanor, a weary admittance of hidden pain. Claire gripped the walking stick she’d procured along the way, squeezing the soft pads of her hands into the peeling bark. Was he assessing her as she was him? Pulling apart each statement and searching for some other meaning, a truth to him that would let her drop away the last of her reservations?

Jamie had stopped fifteen feet ahead of her, perched on a rock jutting from the ground. He swung round to look back, a grin plastered on his face. “Are ye hungry, Sassenach?”

“Can you not hear my stomach grumbling?”

“I canna hear it over my own. But there’s water ahead that looks as fine a fishing hole as any I’ve seen. Care to try yer luck?”

She climbed atop the rock with him, gripping his hand to steady herself. Sure enough, a modest blue shimmering lake, mirroring the surrounding hills on its surface, waited for them. “How do you propose we catch them, or do you have a rod hidden somewhere I can’t see?”

To say she immediately regretted her words would be to undervalue just how horrified she was as they were leaving her mouth, somehow helpless to stop them. His answering grin was what her uncle would have referred to as “shit-eating.”

He opened his mouth to respond and she held a hand up, leaping down to the ground. “No need to answer that, thank you.”

Jamie stayed on the rock for a few moments, watching her stride away, her hips swaying and hair flying about her head. His timing had always been bad, but this seemed particularly cruel. It had started as instinct. Survival and trust. It soon became camaraderie, a warming balm to cold layers of loneliness he’d cloaked himself in for too long. And suddenly now, a kernel of something else began to grow. Tendrils seeking another, a hunger that swells as affection takes root. She’d just lost her husband, and regardless of how strained their marriage had been, that was not an easy loss. And he’d not trod over her vulnerabilities as if they were the welcoming summons of desire. There was no time in this world for that.

She turned back to him, and though she was far away now, her voice swallowed by the wind, he could hear in his mind her cajoling. “Are we fishing or what?”

The smoke curled and caressed the rafters of the old hollowed-out home, streaking grey over the gnarled wood. The stone walls held a chill that rolled off them like fog through a valley. Jamie’s breathing had slowed, his body surrendering to sleep just a few feet away. She luxuriated for a few moments longer in the feeling of warmth and satiation, her stomach not entirely full, but happily not aching for more.

He was lying flat, his hands folded on his chest, his chin turned toward his shoulder. The light of the fire cast shadows on his face until he was all angles, nose and cheekbones and brow. The intimacy of the moment snuck up on her, wrapping her in ancient truths. Two humans alive, sharing air and warmth and food. Two humans begging trust and comfort and strength.

When next she woke, he was gone. Just as he had been the morning before. But it was not morning. The moonlight cut through the cracks in the roof, white lines intersecting night. The fire had burned low, orange glowing embers pulsating. Perhaps he’d gone to find wood.

Claire pushed herself up and shuffled to the door hanging loosely on its hinge. She did not have to go far to find him. He was crouched a few feet outside, his head in his hands. He stood abruptly as she took a step near him and pushed his hands through his hair, standing it on end.

“Everything all right?”

Jamie stared at her, his face too dark to read. Waves of unease rolled off his frame and she realized his chest was moving far too much, his breathing rapid. His voice rasped through the damp air. “Ye said ye’d left for the bunker from Inverness.”

“Yes.”

“Where were ye?”

“What? I don’t -”

“-the hospital. Did yer helicopter leave from the hospital?”

_She’d just buckled herself in, relief like cool water thrown on the flames of her adrenaline as the chopper began to lift off. Frank was still fidgeting with his harness, adjusting the tightness. It should have been over, that world left behind. But the man who’d pulled them in, with his dark SGI uniform and weapons strapped to his thighs, swung his door open. It couldn’t have taken more than five seconds, but it played out in her mind now as a violent dance. She saw the man running on the ground before she even realized there was a woman hanging from the helicopter. She saw him waving his arms, yelling, his voice swallowed in swirling dust. And she saw, in the corner of her vision, the boot coming down on the woman’s hands and on the ground the man… Jamie. Jamie ran to her, cradling her shattered body._

“It was you.” She gasped at the realization.

Jamie took a step closer to her, his face now faintly illuminated by the moonlight. He was stone, chiseled and grey. “How could ye let him do that?”

His words landed like a punch to the gut. Claire’s mouth hung open and the urge to plead was quickly swallowed by pure, righteous anger. “Let him?! How cou-”

“Did ye no’ see the lass? Ye were right there, face against the window. Ye saw her, certain as I did.” His voice was vibrating, like the fletching of an arrow sunk into its target.

His countenance was fueled by vitriol, logic cowering out of sight. Claire turned away from him without another word and walked back, reaching for the door.

“Claire!”

Without turning back to him, she halted, her fingers digging into the deep grooves of the weathered door. “Do _not_ fling accusations of treachery at me!” Her voice sounded too loud in the valley, carried by wind to endless night sky.

Her heart did not slow for some time, sleep scurrying away as her mind replayed his words. And in the deep recesses of her mind, it wormed its way in, the worry that she might have been able to stop it. That one word sooner from her might have given the man pause before his hateful actions. As exhaustion finally overtook her, she fell asleep to the sounds of Jamie’s breath across the fire, shaking and shuddering.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Claire talk through their shared memory and get to know each other. They then encounter danger while looking for food.

An ache deep inside him greeted him upon waking. His body was tired, hungry, dehydrated, and worse still, the emotional exhaustion from the night before still clung to him, pressing into his skin. He had too many needs to address and he felt paralyzed, unsure where to start.

Claire was gone. He could sense it before he’d even sat up to look for her. When she was with him, her presence shifted the air, interrupted the stillness of a room. Her pack lay open on the stone floor opposite the cooled coals of the fire.

Jamie pulled a shirt from his pack and made his way down to the creek to cleanse his body of the night air, the sticky cooled sweat on his skin peppered with the seeds of distant flowers seeking new life. His body was weary and worn,his soul battered, his dreams crawling from his head onto his chest, staring him down. How had it been her in that helicopter, of all people?

He knelt before the icy water and bowed to it, grass tickling his chest. His fingers dug into the muddy bank and he leaned forward until his face dipped entirely into the current. _Supplication. Cleansing. Forgiveness. Benediction._ Was it for her that the Urisk watched over him, kept him alive despite his recklessness? So that he might someday find her? That the secrets she held would survive with her to bring down the gods? Was this his chance at redemption for his cowardice, for his failure to protect his family?

Jamie lifted his head from the water and gasped for air. His eyes opened to the rivulets of water dripping from his hair, and through it he saw in the colors of the current the deep brown of Claire’s hair gliding over the surface of the rocks midstream, smooth and shimmering in the morning light. The sun peeked through the clouds and glowed golden on his skin, the color of her whisky eyes. She was this earth now, as sure as he was. His voice spoke as breath into the wind, a whispered exhale. “I willna let harm come to ye.”

He stood and pulled his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, sensing her presence behind him. Perhaps he had run through the conversation in his mind so many times that he’d convinced himself she had already forgiven him, but it did shock him to see the darkness clouding her face, and he quickly swallowed his smile.

_Supplication._

“We need to talk.”

She led him to the house, to a blanket where she’d prepared a breakfast of cold oats and dried berries. Their food was running dangerously low and an unspoken understanding had been reached. They would need to find a village or home to beg provisions soon.

He settled across from her, unable to touch the food before him despite the gnawing hunger. He would not reward himself.

Her voice was tinged with emotion but controlled. “Who was she?”

Jamie met her eyes finally and felt as brittle as a fallen leaf. His face rippled.

“Was she your wife?”

He had swung at her, claws extended, last night. Of course she would imagine his pain came from such a place. That he’d watched his beloved die in his arms. And he suddenly hated himself even more for dragging Claire through his own minefield of guilt. “No,” he croaked. “No, she - “

“I know _nothing_ of you, Jamie.” Her voice was strained, pleading. “I don’t know why you were there that day in Inverness. I don’t know why you left your home or if you had a family there or who you’re going to now. And I don’t know why you said what you did last night, but I will not be held in such disdain, not when I’ve turned myself inside-out to survive. I will not walk away, nor will I pretend. So, you will explain yourself.”

Her words could have sparked a fire. The air between them crackled and blurred as they both held back tears.

“I am… so sorry, Claire. What I said to ye was… terrible. And untrue. Ye didna ken that man’s intentions and it happened so fast. And while I have only known ye a short while, I am certain ye dinna have a malicious streak. I see ye run yer fingers over the heather so gently… Life is precious to ye. As it is to me.”

She said nothing in return, carefully holding herself still, waiting for his next words.

“I did know her, the woman. Her name was Caitlin. Her family had an outdoor goods shop in Inverness. I went there often, and she was always working. We’d chat about the tourists and climbers and what excursions I had planned. I saw her once at a pub, a few drinks in, whoopin’ it up with some friends. Her man came in and started dragging her out. She didna want to go and he had his hand around her arm, pullin’ her. And I set my drink down… I dinna ken what I was thinkin’, that I’d hit him and start a brawl I suppose. But I just stood there, my feet glued to the floor, and she was gone.”

Jamie stopped and took a drink of water, tilting his head back to look through the hole in the roof at the gathering clouds, steely grey and heavy with rain.

_Cleansing._

“She wasna in the shop when I stopped in before going on my vacation. The next I saw her, she was running for yer helicopter, hanging on for her life. I dinna think she saw me before she fell. And her…” He stopped speaking, squeezing his eyes shut, his breath pushing heavily through his nose. “She was dead when I got to her, but I couldna understand it, so I was pleading with her to stay alive while her head spilled into my hands. And I saw ye in the window, looking down at us with the same look ye have now. Like ye dinna ken how the world fell apart.”

“Jamie.” Claire’s hands were folded in her lap, twined together white knuckled, trapping the pain of this memory in her fists.

“Had I run faster when I saw her, I might ha’ pulled her down before ye got too high. But I saw ye get on that helicopter and her running toward it and I wasna fast enough. She didna deserve that end. Twice I failed her.” He paused, biting his lip. “After ye disappeared over the hills, I found a bicycle and I rode home wi’ her blood soaked through my clothes. My sister nearly killed me thinking I’d been hurt.”

Claire’s breath shook in the wake of his words, carefully navigating the precipice of their trust. “It’s not your fault, Jamie.” She could see only his lashes, heavy with tears, blinking as he stared down at his hands.

He finally raised his head, nodding. His eyes met hers, and a tear streaked down the skin of his cheek. “Can ye forgive me, Claire?”

She tentatively reached a hand to his, prying his fingers apart to wrap her hand around them. Through her tears, her broken voice spoke. “Forgiven.”

_Forgiveness._

His returning smile was one she’d not seem on him before. Not teasing or playful or joyful, but heartfelt and grateful. The smile of a man who’d hidden his heart and now let in a beam of light illuminating the dark places.

The skies opened and the floor next to Jamie was quickly soaked by the torrent. She didn’t let go of his hand but tugged it toward her. “Come over here. We’re not going anywhere for a while, so you might as well keep talking.”

Jamie crawled to her side, and they sat together, legs extended, their backs against a broken table on its side. Her frame relaxed a little next to his, their body warmth filling the small space between.

Claire hummed a bit, sifting through her thoughts. “I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m fairly certain I’ve heard ye call me Jamie now and again. Was that just a lucky guess?”

She nudged him with her elbow and earned an exaggerated gasp. “No, your last name.”

He looked at her with his head tilted back against the table, her curls sprung wilder than usual from the humidity. Her long fingers, elegant and certain, traced the seam of her pants, her knuckles just barely brushing against his leg. The hunger, the fear, the uncertainty that hung over them these last few days drifted to the ceiling and left them in a cocoon of their own words.

“Fraser. I am a Fraser.”

“Jamie Fraser…”

For all the times he’d heard his name spoken, only when she spoke it did he wonder who that man was. Who she saw to go along with the name. “And you are Ms…?”

“Beauchamp.”

“Claire Beauchamp… it is a pleasure.” He spoke lazily, sleepy with the heavy air, his head fell toward hers ever so slightly.

_Benediction._

Her head had tilted with his, weak from the emotions expended, and she found herself lost on the landscape of his face. The room had darkened with the skies and the sound of drumming rain on the roof, a white noise trance. Wind-chapped lips, morning stubble, a mole on his cheek, and shadows swallowing the blue of his eyes as he found hers. She felt dizzy as his breath tickled her cheek, uncertain if he was moving toward her or she toward him. The tip of his tongue swept his lips and her breath caught. “Tell me about your family.”

His exhale blew strands of hair over her cheeks and she brushed them away, lips drawn up in a shy smile.

A small laugh moved up his throat. “How many generations back?”

“Well, you mentioned a sister.”

The rain filled every divot in the stones, a thousand tiny lakes mirroring their golden skin as they talked. Hours passed, dried lamb and dried fruit served for lunch, bathroom breaks over the half-wall, and an impromptu yoga session to stretch their muscles that had grown used to miles of rough terrain.

She learned of his sister and her family, how they’d fled while he hid. Of his mother and father and brother, all gone too soon. And he learned of her parents’ passing before she’d scarcely had time to know them. Of her travels with her uncle and eventual settling in England for studies. And then marriage. There were great gaps of information they wouldn’t get to just yet. Their romantic pursuits and failures. Their long-lost hobbies and childhood dreams. Their first concerts and most embarrassing moments. They tucked away secrets for another day, thereby creating a hope, in the back of their minds, that they would have other days with each other.

She’d stacked some sweaters on the floor as makeshift cushions on the hard stone and they settled down once again. They’d lost the space between themselves and sat shoulder to shoulder now. “You said your uncle - was it? - helped you run the climbing expeditions. Is he not with the rest of your family?”

Jamie cleared his throat and sat silently for a moment before speaking. “My godfather, Murtagh. No, he… He did not return to our home, to Lallybroch. I dinna ken what happened to him, but I am certain he would return were he able.”

The rain slowed until the patter no longer echoed through the room.

“What will ye do, Claire, when we get to Edinburgh?”

“Find someone who can get me to France. I have to get to the headquarters and find out who is still there. Find someone who can make sense of this. What about you? What’s your plan, Jamie Fraser?”

He smiled crookedly, the same reassuring grin he’d given her when first they met. “See if I can find some friends. Inquire about my family.”

They both heard the other’s words, but the unspoken lingered in the air. That Edinburgh would hold a future they couldn’t prepare for. That once there, they’d be no less lost.

Their battered shelter receded into the sunlit hills as they made their way back out into the world, wholly changed from the day before. They had four hours of daylight left and no sense of what they’d encounter, but if Jamie’s hunch was right, they’d soon be seeing more homes, more villages, as they moved south.

They’d avoided roads most of the way, but now deliberately followed one, needing to risk it for the chance to find food. The sun began to fall behind the hills and shadows filled in the lowlands. Rounding a bend, they stopped. Their breaths held as they saw the house before them. Two more just beyond it. No lights. No movement.

“We’ll approach slowly. Be ready to run should there be trouble. Back where we came from, aye?” His hand felt for the hatchet hanging from his pack. He’d not approach with it in hand - no need to scare anyone off.

Claire gripped the fabric of his shirt, tethering herself to him to steady her nerves. The house looked entirely deserted, windows broken, and shattered bits of wood strewn about the front yard. Jamie approached the door, hanging loose on its hinges, slightly ajar. “Hello? Anyone here?” The wind whistled through the door, the smell of rot shocking their senses.

“Something’s dead in there, Jamie.”

“I have to agree wi’ yer assessment, Sassenach.” He looked to her and she nodded her readiness. The door creaked as they pushed through, hands held tight over their noses. It looked as though a storm had blown through, everything broken and upended, dust layering the mess. Their disappointment grew by the second, doubtful the home hadn’t been scavenged entirely.

They stayed close, arms reaching for each other as they scanned the rooms. Claire began stacking bits of broken furniture that would burn well. Jamie moved to the kitchen and stood still, breathing heavily through his mouth. The dog was far gone, decaying to bones and dried sinew, hollowed. “It’s a dog.”

Claire came from the other room and gripped Jamie’s arm, both of them stiff with the effort to hold in the contents of their stomachs. “We should go, Jamie. There’s nothing here.”

“Aye. Yer right.” He walked to the pile of wood she’d gathered and pulled out some twine to wrap it.

Claire nudged the kitchen cabinets open with her foot. Nothing but empty packages, garbage. She allowed herself one last glance at the dog and froze. There were claw marks in the floor below it and a cut in the wood floor running perpendicular to the slats. A door. “Jamie. Come here.”

She pointed to the lines in the floor, to the markings, and his face lit up. “We’ve got to move it and look.” An old rug covered most of the floor under the dog - likely why no one had noticed it before the dog started trying to claw through under it.

Claire wrapped the rug over the dog’s body and they slowly pushed it away from the opening. The door was wedged shut, but the sharp edge of Jamie’s hatchet loosened it enough for them to pry it open. The space was bigger than they’d anticipated, enough for someone to crawl down and hide if need be, but not for long. Not enough space for movement of any kind. At the bottom were two boxes stacked and tied tight with cords. Jamie pulled one out and handed it to Claire, then hung over the opening, stretching to reach the last one.

Her body thrummed with excitement for what they might find, what might be worth hiding. She cut through the cord of the first box just as Jamie pulled the second one up. He looked at her eagerly, grinning almost giddily. “Oh my god, Jamie.”

“What is it?”

She pulled out a mesh bag, tied with string, and held it up so the last light of the evening could illuminate the bumps and curves of the potatoes and turnips. A second bag was filled entirely with carrots. “Jamie, I have never wanted soup so badly in my life.”

He laughed at her joyful face and swallowed the saliva filling his mouth at the prospect of eating something warm and satisfying. She handed him the pocket knife and he slit through the cord and opened his box. “Apples. Loads of ‘em.” He frowned then, holding one up. “Not looking quite so appetizing, I’m afraid.” They were in a sorrier state than the root vegetables, mostly brown and soft. Three looked salvageable and he pushed them into his jacket pockets. He stood and held his hand out. “I’ll take those and tie ‘em to our packs.”

Claire stayed down for a moment, closing the door on the floor with a soft thud, watching the cloud of dust settle on the rug over the dog. Everything in this world had died. Food and pets and the vibrancy of a simple home, all decaying in this fetid place.

The house had been so silent, so filled with only their soft voices, that the sudden crash through the front door sent her heart galloping. Jamie fell backward, sent sprawling into the broken furniture with a crazed animal growling over him. No, not an animal. A man, fur lining his back, face contorted and wild. Their manic grunts and curses echoed through the room and Claire frantically looked around her for something to use as a weapon. The pocket knife was useless. She’d need him close and still to do any damage with the tiny blade.

Jamie’s hands were caught in a lock with the other man’s, both hissing and straining. Another crash as Jamie swung a chair leg at the man, cracking it over his shoulder, only stunning him for a second. Enough time for Jamie to stand, but not to get away. He stumbled as the man yanked Jamie’s feet out, sending him crashing to the ground, his cheek smacking against the floor.

The adrenaline coursed through her, a shivering wild intensity. Then she saw it. He’d set the hatchet down behind his pack, the glint of the metal peeking under the straps of the bag. The sight of blood running down Jamie’s face as he continued to wrestle with the man left no time for inaction. Claire bolted across the floor, tripping as she tried to avoid their swinging limbs, sending her careening into the door. The hatchet was right there at her feet and she gasped the handle, sure and coursing with anger. She’d no chance to turn, to take her swing at him, however. Instead she only felt the sharp crack of her skull as the wood came down upon her and she crumbled, dazed.

Dust swirling in twilight. A rabbit hesitating in the grass. A fly landing on her wrist. Blinding white light. “Claire!”

She rose shakily, a record starting up mid-song. And when she turned she saw Jamie’s boots shaking, kicking at the air as his lungs fought and lost. Her aim was not sure. It was dizzy and wild and only after she’d swung through once, then twice, and saw the red dripping to the dust at her feet did she see where she’d hit the man. His Achilles tendons, severed in both legs. The man screamed, rolling to his side and she dropped the hatchet, diving to Jamie’s coughing prone form. “Jamie! Get up! Get up now!” She yanked his heavy frame up, pulling at his shirt, tearing the collar.

He stood and held her before him, his hands tight over her shoulders. “Claire! Are ye hurt!?” he rasped.

She brought his hand to his cheek, stopping the blood streaming from the cut under his eye. “I’m fine. We need to get out of here now.” The man had turned onto his knees, crawling to them and Jamie snatched the hatchet from the ground, slipping it into his pack. They scooped up the bags of food in their arms, tossed the packs over their shoulders, and ran. Away from the road and the other houses. Away from the man screaming in the doorway. Away from the dead world.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire and Jamie run into someone who offers some unexpected assistance as they near Edinburgh.

Jamie tightened his hold on Claire’s hand, pulling her as she stumbled up the hill, over a minefield of rocks and steep terrain. They’d cleared the open meadow and a quick glance back showed no sign of pursuers. The cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding and the cooling early evening air stung the cuts on his hand, splinters and gouges he’d gotten while protecting his face from the broken chair leg he’d deflected. He didn’t yet notice the scrapes on his back, the bruises forming on his neck from the man’s strangling hands.

Jamie turned his head to look at her and paused mid step, shocked at how pale her face was. “Claire, do ye need to stop?”

She blinked hard, her face strained. “No. Don’t stop. I’m fine.”

He didn’t believe her but had no intention of arguing at the moment. If they could get to the other side, get just a bit more distance, he would breathe easier. They ascended the peak, lungs and legs aching and surveyed what lay beyond. Trees in abundance, unlike the open land behind them. “We can set up the fly in those trees for the night. Should be sheltered enough to keep a fire going.”

“You don’t think anyone will be coming for us?” She bent over, her hands pressed into her hips as her breath slowed.

“I dinna ken for sure, but no, I think he was alone. In any case we’ve not much choice in the matter. We need to rest and patch ourselves up, aye?”

They set up a camp and started a fire, worried about the vanishing daylight to tend to their wounds. Claire went to his pack and knelt to retrieve the first aid supplies, her hand freezing on the zipper, nausea overwhelming her. She backed away from the pack, her fingers trembling. Dried blood filled the lines of her skin, scarlet rivers. She hadn’t noticed, in the terror of the moment, the blood that had dripped from the hatchet coating her hands. She faltered and sagged to the ground, eyeing the hatchet hung on the pack, bloody and dark.

“Claire? Is it yer head? Are ye hurting?”

She looked through him as he knelt before her, enfolding her hands in his. Lips trembling, she whimpered. “Did I kill him?”

Jamie pulled the canteen from the pack and poured water over her hands, gently scrubbing the blood from her skin. “Ye saved me. Ye saved us.”

Her eyes focused again, on the bruises forming on his neck, the coagulated blood on his cheek, their fingers wet and twined together, clinging tightly. At the bowing of his head and the soft brush of his lips on her knuckles.

“Thank ye, Claire.”

He released her hands and she sat still for a few minutes, taking deep breaths, pushing out the images of violence that shattered their world an hour before. She knelt before him as he sat cross-legged on the ground. “What first?”

He held up his hand and she grasped it in hers, pressing her nails into his skin, easing the splinter back to the surface. He winced as she squeezed a bit of his skin between her fingers and gently pulled out the wood. No less than four good-sized splinters, a variety of scrapes and cuts requiring washing and antiseptic, a bandage for his cheek.

“Anywhere else?”

The light of the fire turned the ends of her hair golden, a wild, glowing witch. He smiled tenderly, struck dumb by her natural beauty. She looked like she’d risen from a loch and lived in the branches of the oldest trees. “There’s a scrape on my back, too.”

She eased around him and he lifted his shirt over his head. The cut wasn’t deep but needed washing and a cover until it could scab properly. As she dabbed a wet cloth on the broken skin her other hand braced against his shoulder where bumps broke out on his skin at her touch. Along his spine, she drew her finger lightly over a series of small scars, barely perceptible in the flickering light. “What happened here?”

He answered with a deep sound from his throat. An acknowledgement and preamble. “Five or six years ago. I was climbing with a small group on Beinn Eigh. We’d just started out and one of them got tangled up. I was too far to reach them and unhooked myself. I just needed another meter or so. Felt sure enough in my footing. I dinna ken what happened, but next I knew I was sliding down on my back, my own ropes giving way and then snapping me up, but not after I’d dropped down the rock a good ways. Tore up my back.”

Her palm pressed lightly to his scars. Touching him was a comfort, a reassurance that they were alive. And something else beyond it. Something warmer in her belly that came alive at the nearness of him. She finished bandaging his wound and stood, her fingers gently resting on his shoulder, absentmindedly brushing over his skin. He reached a hand up and squeezed her fingers in thanks.

The aches of their bodies disappeared as they ate, desperately hungry. The flames flickered red and orange on her hands as she lifted the steaming bit of potato to her mouth, blowing to cool it. They’d roasted them over the fire with a bit of salt and popped the pieces into their mouths with the unapologetic moans of the undernourished.

The night fully engulfed them by the end of their meal and the low flames of the fire provided just enough light to set up their bed rolls. He’d laid out the tarp near the fire and she began to set up her bed only to discover him doing the same across the other side of the fire.

He had brushed away the leaves and was preparing a bed directly on the ground when he was stopped by her boot resting lightly on his hand. “What are ye doin’?” he asked, a look of confusion knitting his brows.

“I was about to ask the same of you.”

He didn’t answer, merely looked down, waiting for her to remove her boot from his hand.

“Come sleep on the tarp,” she said softly.

He looked up at her again, a grateful smile on his face. “I didna want to presume.”

She lifted her boot and he gathered his things, standing to face her. “I would feel better with you near.” Her eyes had stayed low when she spoke but met his after she’d said it.

“As would I.”

His eyes were dark, flickering occasionally with the reflection of the fire, but she swore something in them shifted. Like they’d gone molten, his gaze burning through hers. While the heat from the fire warmed the back of her legs, another heat began to build in her, confusing her senses and moving over her skin. She began to lean toward him and watched as if outside herself as she closed the distance between them. Suddenly he grabbed her elbow.

“Are ye all right? I think ye need to rest, Sassenach. Ye’ll fall into the fire in another minute.”

They lie side by side, Claire curled toward him, her face lined with exhaustion. Jamie on his back, but tilting his head to hers, smiling lightly. “Sleep now.”

He woke at the first light of dawn with bugs crawling on his face. He batted them away and slowly his eyes adjusted. No, not bugs, just her hair. He’d managed to curl entirely against her. His hand rested on her hip, as if he’d gripped it a thousand times before like this. She made a small noise and moved then, pressing her arse back against him and he drew in a sharp breath at the contact. His body desperately wanted to move back against her, straining as he was against his pants. He pulled away and hoped she hadn’t noticed anything. Her even breathing told him she was nowhere near waking and he sighed, frustrated and relieved all at once.

Two more nights they spent under the stars in different groves, once suffering rain that thankfully stayed just vertical enough to keep them dry under the fly. Claire had produced a deck of cards, much to Jamie’s delight. More stories told, secrets revealed, and with each moment, a greater ease of touch between them. A playful smack on an arm, a brush of knuckles while reaching for food, soles of shoes pressing together lightly as they sat cross-legged next to each other. She’d pulled a bur from his pants leg and he felt the heat from her hand through the fabric and at once felt a wave of sadness wash over him.

This giddy desire budding between them was fanciful, a prelude to an affair in another time when she was not days from setting sail, never to see him again. When they were not running from violent madmen or endlessly mourning.

More houses appeared along the river they’d followed. “I don’t want to go into any more houses, Jamie.”

“No, we’ll keep our distance.”

They skirted the valleys, hiding in tree lines, cutting in to the river when no houses were in view. An old stone bridge crossed the river and they opted to take it for the simple pleasure of crossing a bridge. Having waded through many a river in the past week, they happily strolled over this one, tossing a few stones in for good measure. Jamie stopped mid-bridge and scraped the sharp edge of a rock into the stonework, drawing his quadrants and offering his berries for the Urisk.

Claire had seen him do it now a few times and had asked him why. He never really answered her, shrugging off the superstitions of his people, but here, when each day felt precariously final, she understood it. It wasn’t tradition or wonder. It was the hard edge of belief. This land was doubtless. Certainty drove the winds and rain, and faeries lived in the spaces between what was seen and what was felt. It was an indescribable knowledge, the prickling, watchful gaze of the beyond.

She walked to the carving and stood next to him, pulling from her pocket a small bag of raisins. One in each square next to the berries. She then took his hand in hers and watched in silence as an eagle drew circles in the sky above them. He smiled - she knew without looking, the gentle squeeze of her hand in his.

Another morning, sunlight and low winds enticing them both to take turns dousing themselves in the icy river water. “I have never felt this awake in my life.” She wrung drops of water from the ringlets of hair, dripping darkness on the grey rocks beneath her feet.

“It is rather invigorating, aye?” he laughed, shaking droplets from his wet hair. They’d washed a few shirts and socks and hung them on stick they stuck into the tops of their packs. “These are my favorite socks, Sassenach, so be prepared to run if they get caught in the wind or snatched up by a bird.”

“You think a bird is going to steal your socks?” Her shoulders shook at the laugh bubbling up.

“Well I dinna think they’ve any money so nicking socks from unsuspecting hikers is their only real option.”

She lost it completely at that, doubling over and nearly dropping her own dripping shirt from her pack. “Okay…” She straightened and took a deep breath to calm herself. “Okay, but how would they even pull the socks on?”

“Oh it’s no trouble,” he said with mock seriousness. “Ye see, they press their wings together like so.” He slapped his hands together, palm to palm. “Wi’ the edge of the sock between and it’s really no bother then pullin’ them over their wee pointy feet.”

“Their wee pointy feet? I can’t…” She fell against his arm, shaking as she laughed, and he could no longer hold it in either, pulling her against him as he laughed into her hair.

They finally pulled apart and he wiped the tears from her face as they tried to loosen their grins. “God, my face hurts.”

He opened his mouth to speak but froze at the sight of an arrow arcing through the air at them. Jamie threw his body against hers, rolling them behind a rock and arching his frame over hers. “Stay down!”

He slowly lifted his head and looked at the arrow, vibrating in the ground a few feet away. The breath whooshed out of him and he quickly sat up, pulling the arrow out and looking around. “Show yerself, man!”

“Jamie! What are you doing?!” Claire scrambled up, reaching to pull him back.

His face lit up then, looking over the rock to the treeline on the rise. Claire slowly lifted her head to see a man ambling toward them, face-splitting grin showing through his scraggly beard.

“Claire, may I present my friend, Hugh.”

“Does he always greet people with weaponry?”

“Och no, only the people he favors.”

Hugh’s skin was mottled and red, scarred and rough. His clothing had seen better days, but looked warm enough. He embraced Jamie, hands pounding boisterously on backs, men beating their affection into each other. Jamie gestured to Claire and as he spoke, simultaneously signed Claire’s name to Hugh, who nodded enthusiastically.

Jamie’s fingers flew from sign to sign as he tried explaining their situation, Hugh’s eyes darting to Claire and back to Jamie’s hands. He signed back to Jamie with a shrug and tilt of his head. A quick sign from Jamie and an answering nod from Hugh. Jamie lightly grasped Claire’s elbow and pulled her aside and spoke low. “He has a home nearby, not much room, but he’s offering us accommodation. I know yer nervous, but he is a friend. I trust him.”

She looked at Jamie, the ease with which they communicated now already taken for granted. “We can’t tell him about the note or the drive. I can’t risk it.”

“No, I’ll not tell him.”

She nodded and smiled. “I trust you.”

Three words serving as a gust of wind, lifting him, transporting him away from the uncertainty of his future. To have her trust felt like a gift.

As they walked to Hugh’s home, he told her of how they met at a charity event, Hugh leading a deaf advocacy group and Jamie looking for ways to provide outreach with the climbing expeditions. They’d hit it off, despite Jamie’s lack of signing skills, and began working together. Within two years Jamie had become adept at signing and Hugh had started his own climbing business geared toward the disabled. They drifted apart after a while, but occasionally ran into each other at events. Until the sickness started spreading. Then, as with all relationships, it wasn’t a question of when you’d see someone again, but if.

Claire watched the two men joking and familiar in this strange new world and wondered what Jamie was like with his family. She played roles for people - everyone did. Who she was with Frank was not who she was with her coworkers. This Jamie with his friend was bigger and looser with his body, a comfortable boyishness she hadn’t seen when he was with her. Who he was began to fill in, the vision just a little more complete.

They sat at an old wooden table, eating their dinner, stewed rabbit thanks to Hugh’s snares and some boiled greens. When they finished, Hugh stood and walked to a shelf, pulling something from up high. He walked back to them and placed before them two laminated cards.

“What are these?” Jamie pulled them to him, turning them over in his hands.

Claire took one and stared at the SGI logo, a knot in her stomach. “Med Pass. What is this for?”

Hugh explained that in order to access most government services and sections of the city, all of which were blocked with checkpoints, you needed to be registered with SGI as medically safe, tested for the virus.

“These are _your_ passes?” Jamie inquired. Hugh winked at him and Jamie let out a breath. “Ah, side business then.” He glanced at Claire to read her reaction, expecting worry. Instead he found her face alight, a ghost of a smile.

“Can we buy these from you? I have some money.” She reached for her backpack on the floor and Hugh placed his hand on her arm, glancing back at Jamie. Hugh shook his head and patted the passes, smiling.

“No money, Claire.” Jamie smiled at Hugh and nodded. “Thank you.”

Claire turned to Hugh, her eyes shining. “Thank you, Hugh.”

Jamie spent the next hour signing with Hugh, scribbling on papers. Claire washed, readied herself for bed, and settled on the bench behind the house to watch the last of the sun’s light reduce to a glowing sliver over the hills.

It felt like a dream at times, as if she’d stepped through a tear in the world and come through to another time, another reality. When it was just the two of them and the land rising around them, when only the birds gave chase, she felt the time before might never have existed. Even the thought of Frank had begun to fade, her memories swirling in a mist.

Jamie’s large frame creaked the bench as he sat. “Hugh’s drawn us a map. We’re close to Edinburgh. We’ll start seeing more homes in the next day or so. He’s given me the location of a safe house, a friend of his just outside the city. We’ll stop there and find out the best routes into the city to avoid notice. Ye’ll need to cover yerself, just to be safe.”

“Is it safe, Jamie? I don’t know what to expect.” She’d drawn her arms tight across her body, worry settling over her, crushing the lightness she’d felt moments before.

“If ye keep yer head down, I believe ye’ll be fine. I’ll not leave ye until I’ve seen ye safe to a boat.” He’d kept that locked away, the thought of her departure. But now, knowing she could be gone in just a few days, his heart squeezed in his chest. Being alone, solitude, was something he’d cherished but now, it felt like a punishment, the thought of walking through this land without her by his side. He glanced at her face and found her looking at him, eyes dark and unreadable.

“I feel like I’m on the edge of that waterfall again. Only I’m not sure how to get down this time.”

The bench creaked as he turned toward her, grasping her chin lightly in his fingers, a small smile drawing his lips up. “You’ve the devil’s own courage, aye? Ye’ll see this through. And then maybe if ye find yer way back to Scotland someday, ye’ll look me up.” His voice whispered over the cool skin of her face.

“How will I find you?”

“Look for me in the waterfalls.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire and Jamie arrive in Edinburgh to get Claire onto a boat to France. Trouble finds them, but so does a new ally.

The woman rose slowly from the futon, unwrapping herself from the threadbare blanket and tossing it over the back. She pulled a hair tie from her wrist and twisted her hair into a loose ponytail. Her cat arched his back and rubbed his head against the woman’s shin, receiving a light scratch upon his head for his efforts. Dawn had come, and with it the orange glow of impending day cut through the thin gaps in the curtains. The room was heavy with dust and unaltered paths worn into the rugs from futon to desk to bathroom, a dark tedium in dark times.

She dropped heavily into the desk chair and flicked on the monitor, squinting as the glow assaulted her tired eyes. Her mind wandered, not yet ready to face the day’s work and her attention fell to the metal shelving behind her desk, to the spare drives and bundles of cords and the stacks of tracking receivers that no longer blinked with the movement of the field agents. Most of the agents were long gone, likely dead. She should get rid of them. Send them off for disassembly, strip away the clutter of what’s been lost.

She pushed away from the desk and walked to the shelves, pulling down a small box of cords and dumping the contents on the ground. She began to drop the receivers into the box, one by one. Six, seven… so many good agents gone. She stopped, her hand trembling at the impossible sight before her. A receiver, hidden behind the others, it’s small red tracking light blinking dimly.

She grabbed it and rushed back to the desk, wiping away two years of dust from the ID sticker on the bottom. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, eyes darting across the screen. The thrumming, nervous energy she had once felt every day, but that had disappeared of late, came roaring back and a grin broke out on her face. “Randall. Holy shit.”

The desk drawer opening so quickly startled the cat, sending him running off to a quieter corner. The woman grabbed a small flip phone from the drawer and quickly typed in some numbers, then waited. Sixty seconds later she held the earpiece to her ear. “Sir. Randall is out and on the move. Detection confirmed, inconclusive tracking, but I’m plugging in direct to get a more accurate bearing.”

Silence greeted her. “Sir, did you hear me?”

The voice on the other end breathed out a sigh. Disbelief, relief. “He’s out then?”

“It certainly appears that way.”

“I’m coming personally. I’ll not have any mishaps retrieving him. Launch Protocol B.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

 

Jamie and Claire had left Hugh’s home with his map, the Med Passes, and the foreboding sense they were walking into a storm. It drizzled all day, weighing them down, slowing their steps on the soft, soggy ground. They’d diverted from a road through fallow farm fields en route to the safe house and worried now, as they entered more populated areas, just what kind of people they’d need to contend with. Hugh had assured them it was safer than the sparse rural land they’d been traversing. The looks they received from the locals did little to ease their minds.

Hugh’s friend at the safehouse, a woman who’d worked with him years ago, led them in to the house after verifying Hugh’s letter. She signed to Jamie where they could sleep - a closet floor barely long enough and a hidden compartment behind the kitchen.

Claire wrung out her pants, wet from the rain, and draped them over a rack in front of the fireplace, tucking her feet under her legs on the settee and pulling a blanket over her shoulders. They’d barely spoken as they neared the safe house, struck mute by the unknown path before them. The seemingly endless, beautiful open lands they’d walked through in the weeks leading to this moment dissolved into a dream as the land flattened and the decrepit homes of the destitute rose up from the ground.

The moment on the bench at Hugh’s, the prelude to their goodbye, floated above them now. A remembrance untouched by the melancholy of the day. Jamie leaned against the wood pillar off to her side, watching her fire-lit face, wondering if he’d see it again this way.

He’d played out conversations with her in his head, perfect words in the perfect moment. Exceedingly romantic, unfailingly practical, and every iteration in between. He’d imagined himself in Casablanca, seeing her off in her heroic quest. “We’ll always have Scotland.” And once he indulged himself, imagining chasing her down and kissing her breathless, hoping it would be enough to bring her back to him some day.

He had no name for it, this feeling that she roused in him. Her very being took hold of his heart and when she’d leave, she’d still have hold of it, pulling him apart. There were no words to speak. He couldn’t trust himself not to beg her to stay. While he couldn’t say what the drive held or what the note meant, he knew with certainty it was important. No desire of his could stand in the way of what she needed to do.

He thought, too, of his own people. Of Jenny’s knuckles gripping the steering wheel. Of the mad drive to survive. They were alive. That he knew. And he needed to find them. He needed to take back his home. Somehow.

* * *

 

“Jamie.” Her voice was swallowed by the noise of the truck, the wheels rumbling over the rough road. She nudged his ribs with her elbow. “My leg is falling asleep. Can you move yours back a little?”

He squirmed behind her, his large frame twisted and compressed in the tiny compartment. “I’m sorry. This is the best I can do. I dinna think it’s much longer.”

She had tried to guess how long they had been on the road. Thirty minutes?  The safehouse was a half mile from a warehouse moving goods in to Edinburgh. They’d been secured in what was essentially a small metal box in the back of a food truck with crates of produce piled in around them. Where they’d end up was something of a mystery.

She laughed to herself considering the irony of her situation, after wanting him this close to her, wondering how it would feel, she now desperately wanted to get away from him, if only to get out of the horrible confines of the box. She’d imagined herself with him curled behind her, how the solid, warm weight of him would feel pressed against her, enveloping her. She’d sculpted dreams out of it, suspended in the space between sleep and waking, where she let the nearness of him, the smell of him, infuse her with desire. There was a definite attraction, as happens to people all the time. But the splintering inside her chest at the thought of leaving him was something else altogether.

The truck slowed to a stop, engine cut, and the back doors swung open. Jamie’s arms squeezed her even closer and they both froze, afraid to breathe. The shuffling of feet, crates scraping across the floor, muffled voices outside the truck. Silence, and then the slamming of the doors closed. A checkpoint.

It happened again, the same kind of stop, but no one walked through the truck. Instead the backup alert rang in their ears as the truck moved. When the doors swung open this time, it was to unload, and they waited. Terror crept over them despite the reassurances that their driver would get them out safely. They’d put their trust in strangers, cloaked in the anxious unknown.

Claire grasped his hand as the lock on the box was released and the cover swung open. The driver looked down at them with a smirk and then glanced out the back of the truck. “It’s clear. There’s a man holding an exit door open for ye straight through the warehouse. Don’t stop, don’t talk, just go. Once yer out, if ye’ve got the passes, ye’ll be fine. No one should bother ye. They’ll assume ye’ve been cleared.”

They scrambled out, shaking loose their limbs and throwing their packs over their shoulders. They strode quickly through the warehouse and by the man holding the door who neither looked at them nor spoke, letting it slam shut behind them.

Edinburgh had an eerie calm. Pedestrians walked purposefully carrying small bags of groceries. The easy social flow of life had been disrupted, replaced by the hard eyes of survivors. Jamie pointed up the road to their left. “That’ll get us near the docks. Might be able to gain passage on a freighter, but it’s risky with all the crew. Yer best bet is a small vessel. Slower ride, but a bit less conspicuous.”

“I don’t suppose you know anyone with a boat?” she smiled at him, attempted to lighten their moods.

“I’ve mostly avoided boats I’m afraid. Terrible with sea sickness.” He made an exaggerated ill face at her and she laughed, nudging his arm.

“So I couldn’t convince you to join me, then?” The words had left her mouth before she’d really considered their gravity, and hung in the air between them. A joke, covering the truth. She’d not ask him to leave behind his missing family to come with her. However much she wished it, the request would be born of selfishness. When she fled from the bunker, it was not contingent on finding a man out there who’d help her. She started out on her own and she’d finish this alone.

He merely smiled at her, not able to embrace the humor now. The wind kicked up and blew strands of hair over her eyes. She reached up to pull them away, but stopped as his hand came forward, grasping the hair and tucking it behind her ear, his fingers lingering just a moment. “What do ye say to a dram to see ye off? Perhaps we’ll find yer transportation there as well.”

The pub before them was surprisingly full. Certainly not boisterous, but more lively than anything they’d seen since arriving. The bartender smiled and nodded at them, but his friendly demeanor disappeared as he spied their packs.

“Ye’re visiting?”

Claire smiled and leaned forward on the bar. “Yes, just arrived.”

“Right. Well, I’ll need to see yer passes before ye’re served.”

Jamie glanced at Claire and he reached into this jacket pocket, pulling out the passes. The bartender looked at them carefully, his face growing troubled. Jamie reached for Claire’s hand, squeezing her fingers in reassurance. “Is there a problem?”

“These are the old ones. They gave ye no trouble comin’ in with these?”

“We’ll be getting new ones shortly. There was a processing delay, but they were quite understanding and said there ought to be no problem,” Claire said while inching closer to Jamie, sensing his body was ready to spring into action should things go awry.

“Weel, it’ll have to do then. I’d not push my luck too much, though.” The bartender leaned forward conspiratorially. “Some places are no’ so lenient.”

Claire’s smile and ease seemed to have won him over and he brought them their whisky along with a plate of chips. They settled against the bar, shoulders pressed tightly together.

Jamie held up his drink and spoke low, leaning close. “To the end of our great adventure…”

“...and the beginning of a new one,” she finished, her smile tinged with sadness. They drank and tried to contain their moans of pleasure, not having enjoyed whisky in far too long. It felt so normal, pretending it was the time before and they were just two people together at a pub.

Jamie gulped down a glass of water. “I need to use the restroom. Be right back.” He pushed away from the bar and squeezed through the crowd of people gathering as the end of the workday neared.

Claire was feeling deliciously warm from the alcohol and chips, relaxed for the first time in days. A light tap on her shoulder drew her out of her reverie and she turned to find an older gentleman smiling at her.

“Excuse me, Miss. Do ye happen to have the time?”

“Oh, certainly.” She pushed back her jacket sleeve and checked her watch. “Half past five.”

“My goodness, that is a lovely watch. I knew someone once with one just like it.”

“How interesting.” Claire nodded and turned back to the bar, hoping he’d take the hint. A moment later, she felt his hand close around her arm, and she turned back to find his face hardened.

“Did Frank give it to ye, Claire? To hold for him?”

Her pulse raced and she scanned the room behind the man, desperately hoping Jamie would appear. Her eyes finally landed on him again, his face still, unreadable. “Who are you?”

“I worked with Frank Randall and I need to find him.”

She shook her head at him, the words caught in her throat. “Frank… Frank is dead.”

The man’s face fell, his carefully controlled expression washed over with genuine grief. “Dammit. Sorry, I… I need to speak with ye, if I may. It’s verra important.”

“You can speak to me here. I am not leaving.”

“I ken ye dinna know me from Adam, but this is not a safe place. There are…” He glanced to his left and nodded. “Do ye see the tall fella at the end? He’s just signaled to me that there are uniforms afoot lookin’ for ye. We have got to move now or there’ll be nothin’ I can do to help ye.”

“But I…” She glanced to the restrooms. Her mind spun and she felt nauseous with the thought of what could happen to her if found by SGI.

“That man ye were with, he’s as good as dead should they find him with ye. We need to go. Now.”

She stumbled from the barstool, eyes searching for Jamie. The men’s room door opened just as she was pulled behind the bar into the kitchen to seek a back exit. Her heart beat painfully inside her chest, faster with each passing second. A blast of cool air hit her face as she careened into the dark, narrow alley behind the pub, the man still firmly gripping her arm.

* * *

 

Jamie had taken a few extra moments in the men’s room to wash his face, the dust and grime from the truck sticking to his skin. When he emerged back into the din of the main room, it took him a moment to gain his bearings as a great deal more people had come in. He squeezed through to their spot and panic flooded his veins. She was gone. He spun around, pushing people to the side to get a better view of the room. No sign of her. He turned back to the bar and pressed himself between a couple, leaning over to catch the bartender’s ear. “The curly-haired lass I was with - did ye see where she went?”

The bartender looked back to where they’d been sitting, just as surprised as Jamie to see her gone. “No, sorry mate.”

“Fuck. Jesus, Claire, where did ye go?”

_The packs._ He pressed through to their now-occupied seats and leaned down, a great whoosh of air leaving his lungs at the relief of spotting them, still tucked under the bar. He retrieved them and begged the assistance of a young woman at the end of the bar. She went to the restroom and returned a minute later with a shake of her head. Unsurprisingly, Claire wasn’t there.

His chest tightened at the thought of what it meant, that she’d left without her pack, without waiting for him. She could only have been forced. He’d lost her.

* * *

 

Claire briskly walked three blocks with the stranger, while two other men stayed a few feet behind. She’d flatly refused his insistence on taking a car, hoping Jamie might see her and follow. And she’d seen enough movies to know getting into cars with mysterious men was a terrible idea. They turned down a dark close, with stone walls blackened by time and wet with the damp Edinburgh air. He stopped at a small staircase on the outside of a building.

“It’s just up here.” He gestured to the door at the top of the stairs.

Claire eyed it warily. “I’m not taking another step until you tell me who exactly you are, who you work for, and why I should believe you.” She was quite certain that was verbatim from a movie.

He nodded and cleared his throat, reaching in to his coat pocket to retrieve a phone. He scanned his fingerprint, typed in a long code, and while his fingers flew across the screen he said, “My name is Wakefield. I work for a division of the British government that is neither acknowledged nor funded publicly so I’m afraid I canna help ye with verification. I will show ye one image and then I ask that ye please accompany me out of view of everyone on the street for a few minutes so we might talk more openly.”

She nodded her agreement and tilted her head to see the phone screen. It was Frank. His face creased in concentration as he spoke to another man, standing in front of the life sciences building at the university. The information below him was largely redacted, but included dates. Dates that were after they’d progressed to a more intimate relationship, dates that were just a few months before he’d proposed to her. “What is this?”

“His first assignment for us. He contacted government agents regarding some suspicious activity at the university, involving work being done in connection with some foreign governments. Word got to us and we recruited him. He was a tremendous asset, a dedicated agent. And I counted him as a friend.”

She felt it again, that horrible sense of loss combined with outrage. Tenderness and humiliation all at once. Claire nodded. “We can talk, Mr. Wakefield.”

He led her up the stairs and knocked on the door. A series of locks clicked and slid and finally the door opened a crack, revealing nothing but darkness behind it. “Fiona, I’m afraid we need to use yer space for a moment. We have a guest.”

* * *

 

Fiona blocked her cat’s attempted escape with her foot as she pulled the door open. Mr. Wakefield led Randall’s wife to the futon and clicked on the lamp. She’d hidden her shock at seeing her instead of her husband and knew instantly it was bad news. This familiar stranger, now sitting in the next room was tired and wary, as anyone’s would be in such circumstances. She seemed calm enough and Fiona marveled at the woman she’d seen in images years ago now come to life in her dingy little space.

“Fiona, would ye be so kind as to get us some tea?”

“Aye, just a moment.” When was the last time she’d served someone else tea? Certainly not since she’d become a recluse in this dark place. She reached for the chipped and faded mugs hanging on hooks under the cabinet and paused. No, she ought to use something nicer than this. Her grandmother had left her a beautiful old tea set and she’d shoved the box under her bed, hoping to find a spot for it someday. It never found its way out from under the bed.

Fiona slipped down the hall to the tiny bedroom. She walked to the far side of the bed and crouched, sweeping her hand under the bed, but made no contact. Peering under she saw the box was pushed to the back behind some shoeboxes. Getting flat on her belly, she inched her way under the bed, cringing at the cat hair and dust coating her clothes. A few more inches and she’d have it.

The movement of her hand stopped at the sound of her front door flinging open and slamming against the far wall. Fiona’s heart leapt into her throat at the sound of Mr. Wakefield’s voice being silenced with a pop, followed by a thud and crash as he fell to the floor. Her body froze, then began to shake as terror crept over her skin. She could faintly hear the woman’s voice but it was quickly muffled to silence. The feet of the people who’d entered shuffled across the floors, dumping the contents of her desk into boxes. She prayed the encryption would be enough, but knew it a foolish hope.

She couldn’t fully see through all the boxes in front of her but could hear clearly as the men swiftly moved down the hall to her bedroom. She willed herself still, holding her breath as they entered, but soon her breathing sounded impossibly loud in her ears, the puffs of air blowing from her nostrils stirring up cat hair on the floor in front of her. The door to her closet was flung open and clothes pushed about, then silence. A painful stillness that threatened to undo her.

“Empty. Let’s get out of here.”

As soon as the door pulled shut behind them, she burst into tears. Shaking and choking, calling for her cat. She stumbled into the living room and gagged at the blood soaking into the rug. Mr. Wakefield was gone. Randall’s wife was gone, but it didn’t look like they hurt her. Only the one pool of blood next to her desk. They’d taken everything from the shelves, her computer, her drives. But they didn’t find her laptop, secured in a hidden compartment at the back of the desk.

Fiona pulled it out and booted up. She wiped her face on her sleeve and regained her composure. First, a message to headquarters to alert. As the only local field personnel, it would take hours before they would arrive. Her work had nearly been cancelled entirely a few months ago as the project lost more of its funding.

Her mind raced with what had gone wrong. They had to have been betrayed by someone inside. The men arrived too quickly. She pulled up the transmission files from Wakefield’s tracker. Both his and Randall’s were no longer transmitting - they’d been destroyed - but there was some earlier data that had transferred. She dug through the coordinates and mapped them until she found both converging just a short while ago. A few minutes later she was staring at security camera footage taken in the last hour outside a pub. And there she was, Randall’s wife. Smiling and talking to a tall man. “Who the hell is that?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie searches for Claire with a bit of help.

Fiona flipped the phone open. One hour until the agents arrived. One hour of pushing her cat away from the blood, of pacing helplessly in these dark rooms feeling useless. She turned back to the laptop; the screen was still frozen on the image of Randall’s wife and the tall man. He was obviously no stranger. They leaned toward each other, an invisible string pulling them together. The woman had touched her face in the video and the man tucked her hair behind her ear. Intimacy. Had he helped her escape?

She pulled the cat onto her lap and ran her hands over his back, his calming purr vibrating against her stomach. “If this bloke cares for her the way it looks like he does, he’s got to be beside himself wi’ worry now. What are we gonna do about it? What can we do instead of sittin’ here twiddlin’ our thumbs?” The cat turned its head to look up at her, releasing a meow that turned into a yawn. “Sorry, I ken ye dinna have thumbs.”

She closed her eyes and let the pieces line up on the wall of her mind. _Where would they go? SGI would want them both alive. Agent Wakefield is a wealth of information should they be able to crack him._ Fiona knew he’d fought back-- and been shot for his resistance. Randall’s widow was still a mystery to her. She could only guess at what she knew or what her motives might be. But as the wife of a spy, she was unquestionably invaluable-- to both sides. _So where?_

_They wouldn’t risk taking them too far before trying to get information. Too many opportunities for escape or something else to go wrong. They’d want to be able to get them out quickly if need be. Easy escape routes. The middle of town was too dense, too difficult to maneuver without notice. Something on the edges. Beyond the inner checkpoints._

“That’s it!”

She turned on the security cam footage from outside her flat and zeroed in on the truck that had transported the men. It was grainy in the dark alley, but it was enough. She ran the plate through the checkpoint network she’d hacked into. The network was a simple log of vehicle traffic, hardly useful most of the time, but now, it was the only thing she had. If the truck had gone through a checkpoint, the plate would be logged.  

She scanned the data, roadway after roadway. And found nothing. The numbers blurred across the screen and ended each time with the words in red. _No match. No match. No match._

_Match found._

Her heart raced, and she stared dumbfounded at the screen. “Where are you? Where are you?” she chanted under her breath.

Kelsey station. “Where the fuck is that?” She opened a map search and typed the station’s name. “The docks. Fucking hell, they’re at the docks.”

Fiona pushed her chair back and stood quickly, vibrating with tension and adrenaline. The darkened blood just inches from her feet stopped her. They’d been betrayed by someone. What if the people she called from headquarters were a part of it, too? The room spun as she realized she couldn’t trust anyone. But she couldn’t do this alone. She needed to find that man from the pub.

* * *

 

Jamie’s jaw ached from the stress stringing his body tight. He hummed under his breath, a nameless tune to distract himself from the nausea rolling over him every time he thought of what could have happened to her.

The streets grew darker and his strides grew longer, aimless and desperate. He moved through alleys like a cat hunting its prey, silent and ready to strike. He would strangle them with his bare hands if they hurt her. And deeper, beneath the rage, dwelled the thought that he’d not be able to live with himself if something happened to her.

He hugged her pack against his chest, as if her belongings could somehow guide his feet to her. But each street was another disappointment. He started at every glimpse of dark, curly hair and cursed when it wasn’t her. His body grew weak, in need of food and rest. But he couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t.

The pedestrians began to retreat into their homes, the cars disappearing from the streets. A pounding headache pressed behind his eyes and he dropped to a crouch at the bottom of some steps in a dark close, a single hazy light casting shadows around him. It was too much. His walls were already paper thin, and this day had shredded them. His shoulders shook, a sob starting deep in his gut and moving up his throat until it choked him. He brought his hands to his face and caught his tears as they cut tracks down his cheeks. Her name stayed hidden in his mouth, as if speaking it would release the last part of her.

The sound of a moped approaching shook him from his misery and he wiped at his face as he stood, straightening against the stone wall. The moped stopped a few feet from him and the young woman on it gave him an intense stare.

Jamie cleared his throat. “Can I help ye?”

A dark emotion flashed across her face for a moment just before a small smile broke through. “I think we may be able to help each other. Are ye looking for a woman?”

He was taken aback, unsure of what to say. A look of horror crossed her face and she started to speak again.

“Oh god! I dinna mean it like that. I dinna mean were ye lookin’ for a woman as in… Ye know, of the streets. Because, I’m not -”

Jamie smiled, caught by the joy of hope. “Claire. Do ye know what happened to Claire?”

Relief, tinged with embarrassment washed over the woman’s face as she answered, “Aye, we need to talk.”

He’d nearly kissed her when she told him she had an idea where they might be but thought the better of it at her wide-eyed stare. She moved forward on the moped for him to get on the back and he eyed the tiny seat skeptically.

“Right. Ye’re a bit of a giant, aren’t ye? Do ye want to drive and I’ll sit behind?”

“Aye, let’s try that. Point me in the right direction.”

The moped dipped with their combined weight and he squeezed the throttle as Fiona’s arms tightened around his waist. “Easy on the throttle. Stones are slick at night.”

The streetlights began to disappear as they neared the docks, cobblestones giving way to concrete, residential buildings now replaced by tall fences. He cut the lights and slowed to a stop behind a shipping container. Fiona hopped off and opened Claire’s backpack, pulling out her laptop. She’d had to abandon her own pack for them to fit on the moped together. Fiona pointed at the screen, casting light on their faces.

Security cameras from the docks showed two smaller vessels tied up a little way from the freighters. “It’s got to be one of these if they came through this checkpoint.”

He nodded, his eyes scanning the area around the boats. “We need to distract them. Find a way to draw at least some of them away from the boat for a few minutes.”

Fiona grinned. She pulled out two small canisters with fuses at the top. “A little firecracker action in the middle of some containers should do the trick.”

“Aye, that will do,” he smiled back. “Now, we just need to find a way to take out whoever is left. I dinna suppose ye have another trick up yer sleeve?”

She didn’t grin as she pulled out a small pistol from the pack. He nodded, saying nothing.

“Right. We’d better get moving.”

They slid the packs over their shoulders, unwilling to risk leaving them behind. It might slow them a bit, but there was no perfect plan for them now. Fiona led him to a storage shed where they stacked crates and climbed onto the roof, hauling extra crates with them. It was a big risk, jumping from the roof over the fence. But again, there was neither time, nor options.

Jamie went first, dropping some crates onto the grass on the other side so they could get back, then threw the packs over and jumped, rolling as he hit the ground. Fiona went next, landing solidly on one of the backpacks and flopping over with an “owwww”.

“Ye all right?”

“Never better. Let’s go.”

The boats bobbed in the water and Jamie’s gut churned just watching it. They tucked in behind a barrel, peeking over the top, squinting in the dim light to see through the small windows in the lower half of the boat. A man moved inside, reaching down, then turning around. He pulled someone forward and pushed them into a seat, their arms bound behind them. It was the way she tilted her head that gave her away. He’d seen it so many times, when she was listening intently, wondering about something. It was her. She was alive, and seemingly unhurt. Breath rushed from him, a great release of the tension coiling in his gut.

He looked at Fiona and she nodded, then rose from her crouch and ran to the shipping containers a short distance away to set up the firecrackers. There was no backup plan. This had to work.

He waited. He could hear muffled voices from the boat but could discern no words. Still no firecrackers. He began to imagine she’d been caught. That he would come so close only to fail. Panic crept into his chest.

_Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!_

Two men came rushing out of the boat’s cabin, eyes scanning the area, trying to determine the source of the noise. They spoke in low voices and one jumped onto the dock, heading for the containers, his gun drawn. The other man returned to the cabin.

Jamie waited, inching closer to the pier where the boat was tied. As soon as the man was out of view, he ran. The second set of firecrackers went off farther away and he eased onto the boat, crouching behind the doorway to the cabin, in the shadows.

“What in the hell is going on?” The man inside the cabin moved back toward the doorway, just inches from him. Jamie saw Fiona now crouching on the other side of the boat. A few more men from the freighters had come out to see about the commotion, their attention thankfully turned away from the small boat. Jamie nodded to her, drawing his small knife.

As the man stepped out of the cabin, Jamie stabbed at his ankles. He dropped to the ground with a sharp cry. Fiona leapt onto the boat and drove her knee into his back, flattening him to the floor as she stuffed a rag into his mouth, and held the gun to his head. Jamie quickly grabbed the man’s gun and threw it into the cabin while he tied a cord around his hands.

“Jamie!” Claire’s voice was a whispered yell, shaking with emotion. He shot a glance back at her, his emotions flickering visibly across his face. He handed the pocket knife to Fiona who quickly ran in to cut the zip-tie around Claire’s wrists. As soon as Claire’s hands were free, Fiona grabbed the gun near her feet and aimed it at the man as Jamie dragged him into the cabin.

He looked up at Claire, elation washing over him. “Claire.” Her answering smile threatened to knock him over.

Fiona had not noticed him right away. He was curled in the dark corner, unmoving.“No!” Fiona fell to the floor and lifted Agent Wakefield’s head, his skin a deathly pale hue, his clothing soaked with blood.

“Fi, ye need to go now,” his voice rasped painfully.

Her breath wheezed as she tried to keep calm. “We’ll carry ye.”

“No. They’ll catch ye and they willna be interested in talking. Ye must go.”

Tears slipped from her eyes and dropped onto his grey skin. She nodded, a small whimper escaping her throat. Before standing she laid the gun on his chest and wrapped his fingers over it.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said, her voice cracking. Wakefield blinked at her, all he could muster in reply.

“We have to go now,” Jamie said, craning his neck out the cabin door. “They’ll be coming any second!” He grasped Claire’s hand and Fiona followed as they jumped from the boat and ran away from the pier. Away from the men, away from Wakefield, dying on the floor of that boat. Their feet flew over concrete, jumped over coiled ropes and skidded to a halt at the sound of a gunshot far behind them. Another shot followed just a few seconds later.

Fiona continued past Jamie and Claire, and shoved the crates against the fence. She tied the barbed wire down in a couple spots and jumped, landing heavily on the metal roof on the other side and Claire followed, limbs shaking as she climbed.

When all three had finally crossed over and slid to the ground, they caught their breaths and paused, gulping down water from the canteen while they contemplated their next movie. Claire drifted to Jamie, their hands drawn together like magnets as they stood next to each other, silhouetted against the glaring light behind the shed.

Fiona faced them, her whole body vibrating, while clouds of shaking breath blew from her mouth in the cool night air. “He saved me. I had nothing, no one, and he brought me here. He gave me a chance to do something for the world.” She looked into Claire’s eyes, still. “They think they rule the world, SGI. If they started the virus, if you have something that can prove it or take them down, you can’t stop until it’s done. Don’t let their deaths be in vain.”

Claire nodded to her solemnly. “I need to get to France. I need to find someone who can get me back into SGI, to get to the bottom of this.”

Fiona stood silent in the shadows, unmoving. “I may know someone who can help ye. But ye’re not safe here. They’ll be patrolling once they figure out what’s happened.” She rubbed her eyes with her palms and held them there for a moment while she thought. “Okay, a couple miles south of here, along the promenade, there’s an amusement center. Go there and sit along the stone wall, looking out toward the water. Just try to fit in wi’ the crowds, like ye’re just a couple out fer the night. I’ll signal with two flashes of light. Ye may need to get yer feet a bit wet.” Fiona pulled her laptop out from Claire’s pack and tucked it into her jacket as she made her way over to the moped.

“Thank you!” Claire called.

Fiona looked back over her shoulder and nodded, then disappeared into the night.

Claire turned back to Jamie and her breath caught in her throat at the look on his face. As if seeing something wondrous, awe lit his face, his eyes glistening. His hands rose and cupped her face, fingertips ghosting over the soft skin of her cheeks.

“I thought… I thought ye were gone.”

Claire’s hands wrapped around his, and her face broke at the desperation in his voice. She flung her arms around his neck and pulled him tightly to her, and his arms responded in kind, pulling her flush and lifting until just the tips of her toes touched the ground. “I’m sorry.”

“No. Ye did what ye felt ye must and I’m just so grateful ye’re safe. It tore me apart. The thought of something awful happening to ye.” He felt her breath and the soft touch of her lips on his neck, below his ear, and a shiver ran through his body.

“Thank you for risking yourself to help me. You can’t know what that means to me.” Their grips loosened, but they still held each other, swaying gently as the wind off the water blew the sharp, briny scent of the sea through their hair.

“It’s going to be okay, Sassenach.” His hand rubbed circles on her back and she leaned into it, her muscles tight and weary. “Fiona’s going to get us a boat and we’ll get to France and -”

She pulled away suddenly, her eyes searching his for the answer to an unasked question. “Us. Would you…?” Her heart thundered in her chest at the prospect, the thing she’d not allowed herself to hope for.

He grasped her hand and held it to his lips, breathing into her skin. “If ye’ll have me.”

The smile that lit her face was reflected back at her. Their hands grasped and kneaded and twined together, an endless, fluid dance. Her voice whispered over his lips and their breath clouded between them. “We should go, but I need to ask something of you first.”

“Anything,” he murmured.

“I would like very much to kiss you.”

His lips twitched, pulling back his escaping smile and his eyes fell to her lips, slightly parted. His answer to her question came as his nose nudged hers, his hand tilting her head back just so, until their lips met in the warm, light pressure of a tentative first kiss. They parted no more than a hair’s breadth before falling into each other again, unable to contain the desire that had been stirring under the surface. She pulled his lip between her teeth and his tongue sought the dark, warm depths of her mouth. The first taste and breathless abandon left them buzzing, with a new adrenaline coursing through their veins. His lips ghosted over her cheek to her ear.

“Can you run?” he whispered as he nipped at her earlobe.

“Yes,” came her rasping reply.

They pulled apart, lifted their packs onto their backs once again, and ran toward the promenade.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fiona sees Jamie and Claire off to France with a bit of help along the way.

The industrial buildings gave way to beachfront. Slowly, the air filled with the chatter of nightlife and music drifting from open windows. All was not lost in the world. Life’s richness had been hidden for too long and people were reaching out for each other again, tentatively grasping moments of joy. But it was not a perfect illusion. Guards still lurked in doorways, and people kept a distance out of habit.

The promenade was quieter than usual, with a strong, cold wind cutting through the night. They slowed to a walk and slipped their hands together without thought. The amusement center’s garish lights flashed in the distance, shimmering off the water inching up the beach.

“You said you hated boats. Are you going to be alright?” Claire leaned into him, trying to capture a bit of his warmth against the growing chill.

His face paled and he grimaced. “It willna be pretty, Sassenach, I’ll not lie. Are ye havin’ second thoughts about dragging me along?”

“Dragging you along? If you so much as hint at becoming a burden, I promise I will toss your green-gilled body into the deep.”

His laugh rumbled low in his chest and he leaned down, brushing the tip of her ear with his lips. “And what would I have to do to convince ye to keep me around?”

She squeezed his hand and tilted her head, his lips grazing her cheekbone. Her next words were spoken with a sultry purr. “Buy me some fish and chips.”

“Mmmm… Is that a euphemism?” he smirked.

“No, I’m really hungry and I don’t know what kind of food we’ll be able to find once we leave. Oh my god, it smells so good.”

Her stomach rumbled at that moment and he laughed, dropping a light kiss on her nose. “Your servant, madam.”

They settled on the stone wall by the shore, their feet lazily drawing lines in the sand. She batted his hand away and accused him of stealing all the chips, and he chastised her for dropping a crispy bit of fish onto the sand.

“Don’t stare at me like that,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m licking grease off my fingers.”

He laughed lightly and nudged her shoulder with his. “Where was all this silliness when we were tripping over rocks in the Highlands? Get ye near the seaside and ye’re downright giddy.”

“I do love the sea. That is part of it. But also hope. The feeling that maybe this isn’t impossible. That I won’t have to do it alone.” She turned, and found him smiling faintly at her, his expression peaceful. Her lips turned up in a sly smile. “And being properly kissed helped.”

The smirk returned. “I canna wait to kiss ye improperly.”

He tilted his head toward hers and she licked the salt from her lips, but he stopped and quickly looked back at the water. Two lights. “It’s Fiona.”

The sea was black as the night sky, the clouds muting the moon’s glow. They could just make out the dinghy as Fiona motored to the far end of the beach. They stood and calmly slung their packs over their shoulders, maintaining their inconspicuous facade. Leisurely, they strolled down the promenade, as the glare of the lights and the din of the people dissolved behind them.

“Ye’ll have to roll up yer pants. I canna bring it in further wi’out grounding the propellers.” Fiona’s voice rose just barely over the noise of the surf against the docks. Claire went ahead of Jamie, gasping at the cold water swirling around her calves. They rolled with the surf and Jamie’s hands clung tightly to the side of the dinghy as they skirted the edge of the dark pier.

The _Ping An_ cast its glow over the water and Claire couldn’t help but feel the significance of this moment in her life. The next step lay in front of her, in a stranger’s sailboat, in the dark, cold waters of Edinburgh’s bay and the petulant gales of the North Sea. She grasped Jamie’s hand as they neared the boat, and in the light of the lantern hanging from the stern, she saw in his face the same calm certainty she’d seen in him as they traversed the wild hills of the Highlands. He had been there from the beginning, hands out, ready to leap with her.

A man knelt at the back of the sailboat, tossing a rope to Fiona as they approached. His face was shadowed by the brim of his cap, shielding him from the lantern’s light. Fiona gestured for them to climb aboard the sailboat and followed after she’d secured the smaller boat.

It was a sizeable vessel, thirty-five feet of salt-battered fiberglass and chrome. Plenty of room for the three of them to be cozy for a while.

“Jamie, Claire. This is Yi Tien Cho. He’ll be taking ye to France on this fine ship.”

Claire grasped his roughly calloused hand in greeting, thanking him for helping them. “I don’t have much money at the moment, but I may be able to get some -”

“No, it’s taken care of.” He glanced to Fiona who nodded. “Do either of you have sailing experience?”

Claire didn’t bother looking at Jamie considering his issues with sea-sickness and shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Lessons tomorrow. We should get going.”

Claire turned to Fiona and pulled her into a hug, surprising the petite woman whose arms hung loosely at her side until she slowly brought them around Claire’s back. “Thank you for helping us. Are you going to be okay?”

Fiona pulled away, her brows knit, tight with tension and unexpected emotion. “Aye, just fine. I’m sorry things went badly.”

Jamie leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Fi.”

“I have one more thing for ye, before ye depart.” Fiona reached into the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled out a small, folded note and some money. “This is all the cash I could get on short notice, but it’ll help ye on yer way. The information on the note is for when ye reach France. I canna promise anything, but I think he’s yer best chance at getting to the bottom of things. If ye can convince him to help ye. He doesna ken I’m aware of his location so he may no’ trust ye. Tell him I’m sorry.”

Jamie unwrapped the note, reading it quickly. His eyes met Claire’s and found her as confused as he was. He refolded the small piece of paper and tucked it into his pants pocket. “Take care, Fiona.”

She climbed down into the dinghy and tossed the rope back to Tien Cho, then slipped away into the night.

“Jamie, try to drink something.” She pulled the shirt away from his back to let the cool night air dry his sweat-soaked skin.

He’d woken a few hours into their voyage, and promptly vomited into the trash bin at the foot of the bunk. His stomach hadn’t settled much since. They’d kept as close to the shoreline as was safe but had hit patches of rough water that violently rocked the sailboat, leaving them all grasping at the handrails. They anchored in the shallows near a quay, enduring the rhythmic rolls of the sea as they tried to get some sleep before daylight.

“Go to sleep, Sassenach. I’m not going to be of much use during this trip, so ye’ll need to be First Mate.”

“Nautical lingo, is it?” She squeezed his arm and brushed the wet hair from his forehead. “I’ll leave the water right here. Take small sips.” She kissed his shoulder and went back into the cabin, leaving him slumped in the seats at the stern. Tien Cho joined him a few minutes later, the white handle of a sucker jutting from his mouth.

“You going to be sick the whole time?”

Jamie snorted. “If ye ken a way to settle my stomach, dinna hold back. But aye, I dinna fare well on boats.”

Tien Cho reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another sucker and unwrapped it, holding it out to Jamie.

“Distracting me wi’ candy? One of my mam’s old tricks.” The sharp bite of the ginger made him wince, but his tongue slowly numbed to it. “Ginger? Does that really work?”

“Perhaps.”

Tien Cho tapped his finger on Jamie’s hand, resting on his leg. “May I?”

Jamie responded with an uncertain noise in his throat and watched as Tien Cho turned his hand over so the palm faced up. He circled Jamie’s wrist with his fingers, gripping it firmly, and with his other hand, traced his fingers up the soft skin of his forearm just a few inches. He then began applying pressure in a circular motion.

“Breathe through your nose. Slow and deep. Good.”

Jamie’s body relaxed, forgetting about the upheaval from moments before. “Where do ye get those candies?”

Tien Cho hummed, then went silent for a minute. “I used to take tourists on sailing trips. Taught lessons. Not many tourists anymore, so I have to be more creative. People who require transport do not always have money, nor is money what I necessarily want. Sometimes, a supply of ginger candies is payment enough.”

Jamie smiled, nodding. “Canna argue its value at the moment.”

“We have learned to revalue the things of our lives in these times. The economics of survival fluctuate based on where you are at any given moment. Firewood is of no use to you right now but would have been essential in the wilds. You would have scoffed at the ginger suckers a day ago, but now, they are quite valuable. I provide transportation, which is only of value if you need to go somewhere. Is a box of ginger suckers worth a ride on my boat once a month to get medical supplies from an unregistered merchant? It must be. But above all, the greatest thing of value is trust of our companions. That is all we have now. I trust Fiona. And she tells me I must trust you. So, I will. And you have trusted me with your lives. No greater value than that, hm?”

The wind was kind to them as they raced south along the edges of the horizon, the land rising and falling on their starboard side, the morning sun casting their shadow toward the shoreline. Jamie’s stomach was somewhat tamed, but never fully settled at night, so he slept during daylight when he could manage it.

Claire took to sailing with vigor, practicing the movements with Tien Cho like a choreographed dance, the sense of purpose reigniting the spark that once had lived behind her eyes.

She nearly ran into Jamie, crouched over his pack in the cabin. “Oh! Sorry!”

Her voice was muffled, and he turned to find her sucking on the side of her finger.

“Are ye hurt?” He stood quickly and eyed her with concern.

“Mmm.” She popped the finger from her mouth and showed him. Blood rose to the surface around the edges of the torn skin, and a good bit of flesh was missing, a blistering red. “Rope.”

He sucked in air through his teeth sympathetically and brought her to the small table to help clean the wound. He slid onto the bench next to her and she reached for his water bottle to drip some over the wound, but he stopped her hand. “Will ye let me care for ye, please? I’ve been nothing but ballast while ye’re up there becoming a captain.”

“Ballast, hm? Balancing things out, are you? I would say my life has been significantly - ah!” She gasped at the sting.

He quickly wrapped the bandage over the wound and smiled at her. “What were ye saying? Something significant in yer life…?”

“Yes, my life has been significantly _less_ balanced since you showed up, so I’m not sure ballast is the right word for you.”

“Is that so?” His hand continued to hold her arm, thumb lazily rubbing the smooth skin of her wrist. “I dinna agree with yer assessment. Before ye met me, were ye getting plenty of fresh air?”

She tilted her head and made a show of thinking about it, a small smile playing over her lips. “Well, no. I was quite lacking that.”

“Hmm. And were ye often observing constellations before?”

“No. No stars for me.”

“Were ye roastin’ vegetables over an open fire often?”

“Not that I can recall, no.”

His hand traveled up her arm, his fingers brushing the fine hairs back. Her shirtsleeves were pushed to her elbows and his thumb pressed into the bend of her arm as two fingers snuck beneath her sleeve, caressing her skin with a deliberate intimacy.

“What else have I been sorely lacking before you, Jamie?” Their eyes met in the crackling heat that swirled between them.

His head lowered, closing the space until he was too close for her to look into his eyes, until she found herself staring only at his lips.

“Were ye often properly kissed before ye met me?”

“Not often,” she breathed. “Not the way y-”

His mouth swallowed her words and chased them, seeking in her a nameless place where only they existed. Running through the wilds, he had imagined it. They were alone, until the illusion was shattered by the world’s madness bursting through. But here, in the swirling depths of her kiss, he knew it true. In the tiny whispers of pleasure that fell from her lips, in the moans that spilled from his, a new world was born, where they alone existed.

The days and nights blurred, one into the next on the boat. Then suddenly, hope. Claire found herself unable to sit still once the coastline of France appeared on the horizon. She pulled Jamie to the bow with her and wrapped his arms around her middle, leaning into his chest. The fear that had plagued her as they fled Scotland did not cloud this sky. She had made it this far and felt the strong current of hope pushing them toward shore. Should fortune fail them now, she could not regret her choices.

Tien Cho left them for a while after tying to the pier, jutting from a tiny inlet of a fishing village. He returned to the sailboat and gestured for Jamie and Claire to join him. “Go to the apothecary straight up the main road. Ask for Raymond. He will be transporting you to your destination.”

“We can trust him?” Claire asked.

“He is a friend,” Tien Cho replied. “I have promised him you will pay, however. Fuel is quite expensive.”

Jamie tightened the straps of his backpack and nodded to Tien Cho. “Of course. Thank ye for what ye’ve done, for seein’ us safe.”

Claire grasped his hands between her own and met his eyes, clear and certain. “Thank you.”

Tien Cho nodded to them both, pulling his cap low over his eyes and turned back to the _Ping An_ , lovingly running his hand over the chrome rail. The intimacy of their days at sea suddenly felt like a dream as Tien Cho disappeared into the boat, preparing for his next voyage.

The apothecary was tucked in between a grocer and a barbershop, a small, wooden sign hanging above the door with no name, only a mortar and pestle with various symbols circling it. A bell dinged as they entered the dark shop. Jamie ducked under some drying herbs hung from the ceiling and looked to Claire, only to find her face alight, awe coloring her features.

“I feel as though we’ve walked into a storybook,” she murmured. The long, worn, wooden counter ran the length of the store and held behind it a wall of corked glass bottles of various hues and indecipherable contents.

“What are the odds they have ibuprofen?” Jamie asked while poking at a taxidermied rodent of some kind perched on the counter.

“I’m guessing they’ll have the crushed weed alternative, if you’re feeling adventurous.”

Jamie crouched at the rodent’s level and attempted to replicate its pose, sending Claire into a fit of giggles she quickly swallowed as a man appeared from the curtained back room. His eyes held their gaze over the top of his glasses perched low on his nose. He wore wrinkled clothes and a warm smile.

“Ah, Monsieur Raymond?” Claire asked hopefully.

His smile grew, and he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Indeed. And you, Madame, are a traveler?”

“I am. We are.” She grasped Jamie’s hand and pulled him to her side. “We were told you could provide transport for us.” She dropped her voice, suddenly unsure if there was anyone else in the back. “Discreetly. I have -” She reached into her pocket to pull out some of the cash Fiona had given her and held it out to him. “I have payment. I hope it’s enough.”

He did not reach for or look at the money she held, but kept his eyes fixed on hers. “You have come far. Tell me, do you know your future?”

“My future? Well… no. Do you?” She’d not meant it literally, but a queer feeling ran through her body as his face grew serious.

“The moment we begin to choose, when we place our feet deliberately off the path, that is when the future is written. Our future unfolds before us in every moment, if we care to look. If we see someone in a dream and then meet them someday, does that mean something inside us knew where the path would lead?”

She felt Jamie’s body tense at Raymond’s question, knowing he was thinking of the dream, of how they’d held each other’s faces in their minds before they ever met.

“Could it be the brain mingling new information with old? Swirling it all together so we can’t discern the difference after a time?” Claire countered.

Raymond smiled broadly back at her. “The mind playing tricks, yes? It does like to do that.” He folded his hands together and tilted his head, contemplating. “Keep your money and answer a question for me.”

Jamie looked at Claire warily, unsure about what the man might ask of them. Her returning look told him she was as nervous as he. “What would ye ask?”

“I will write initials on a piece of paper and ask that you tell me if they fit the man you are sent to find at your destination. Do you accept?”

Claire glanced at Jamie and found herself once again in the middle of a silent conversation. Somehow, she’d learned his mind through the flicker of his eyes and twitch of his cheek, the slow drawn up lips, the hum in his throat. Their own shorthand. She turned back to Raymond and nodded.

Raymond tore a sheet from his notepad and wrote the two letters, then slid the paper across the counter to them.

_FR_

Claire nodded.

Raymond retrieved the paper between two fingers and snapped them, the paper disappearing. “I do not know if he will be able to lead you where you need to go, but if he does, if you find yourself back in a familiar place, do not be distracted by the stars above and miss the snake at your feet.”

Jamie fidgeted, disturbed by not just the words, but something in the man’s tone, a foreboding timbre in his voice.

“Raymond, is it possible? Can we stop something that has already reshaped the world?”

He opened a panel on the counter and came through to their side, sliding his hand into his pocket to pull out his keys. He gestured for them to leave while he locked up and turned to them as he finished. “Our perspective matters more than time. You are thinking, ‘Can I turn back the clock?’ You are not here as an agent of change. You are here as a light, illuminating the shadows.”

He walked ahead of them and led them down an alley.

Jamie’s hand rested on her lower back as they walked, and he whispered, under his breath. “ _Sorcha_.”

“What did you say?” she asked, looking up at his face in the blue evening light.

“Mmm. Nothing.”

Raymond’s car was suitable for a man of his stature and Jamie’s eyes widened at the prospect of folding himself up to fit in. Claire noticed his hesitation and pushed him into the back seat. “It’s better than the box, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

Raymond told stories of the villages as they drove through them, lights turning low until only moonlight and the dim headlights of his car cut through the dark. The farm fields rolled by and Claire drifted in and out of consciousness, catching snippets of stories and Jamie’s inquiries coming from the back seat.

“Claire. Wake up. We’re here.”

Her heart sped up at the sudden jolt of waking in an unusual place but calmed at Jamie’s voice in her ear.

“I’m afraid I’ll sound like an accordion when I try to walk after this,” he joked.

They leaned into the car’s window before Raymond left, thanking him and wishing him well. He smiled back at them, the dash lights creating deep shadows in the lines of his face. “Godspeed you, travelers.”

The car lights faded, and he disappeared down the road, leaving them in the glow of the single light at the iron gate of the abbey. Stone walls extended as far as they could see.

“Are ye ready?”

“I have no intention of spending another night sleeping on the hard ground.” She lifted her hand to the intercom and pushed the button.

A voice answered. “One moment.”

A few minutes later, footsteps on the gravel grew louder and a man in a robe, holding a lantern, approached from the other side of the gate. “Do you seek shelter?”

“We do, but we are also seeking a man who we have been told is here,” Claire said.

“And what is his name?” the man asked.

“Fergus. Fergus Rousseau.”

The man stared at them silently for a moment, his face still, unreadable.

The gate opened.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie and Claire settle in at the Abbey and learn new information about SGI. Their relationship moves to the next steps. NSFW

The stone walls of the abbey held dancing shadows, flickering firelight from torchlit sconces, harkening the spirits of the monks who made this place their home over hundreds of years. The night’s insects filled the darkness with their layered chorus and swallowed the echoing footfalls of their new audience.

“You may sleep here. Sleeping shirts are in the cabinet should you require them.” The monk had asked them their names and business and had surely taken in every tiny detail as they walked the long stone path to the living quarters. Shadows moved in the periphery, but no other voices spoke save that of their host. “Oh, you may call me Brother Martin. I will come for you in the morning. Early.” He turned to leave them and stopped, sniffing. “Ah, if you should desire to wash, there are showers down the hall.”

Jamie and Claire stood motionless in the dim light of the hall, outside the arched door of their room and waited until silence descended. Jamie sniffed loudly. “Did he say showers? As in modern plumbing? Not a bucket and brush?”

“Jamie, I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the happiest moment of my life.” He caught the flashing white of her teeth as she smiled, and he laughed back at her.

“Is tha’ so? Weel, I canna say it troubles me to hear it. Gives me something tangible to shoot for. I reckon I can do better than a long-awaited shower. I shall endeavor to try, at least,” he proclaimed with confidence.

“We’ll see.” Claire dropped her pack on the floor of the room and headed straight for the showers. Jamie strolled around the room, noting the sparse furnishings, worn dark and smooth over many years of use. He’d had an ancestor said to have been a monk in France and wondered if this was the sort of place he’d been. He pulled the nightshirts from the drawer and decided, after a quick perusal of his packed and poorly washed clothing, this was the better option.

Grabbing a shirt for himself, he walked down to the showering room and cracked the door open, not wanting to barge in on Claire. He heard the distinct sound of water splattering against the tile floor and noted there were two stalls against the wall. Without doors.

He hadn’t meant to look. And it was really just a glance. A split second without thought. She’d been turned away, head tucked under the stream of water, the ivory glow of her skin vivid against the dark recess of the unlit stall. He quickly moved to the corner and shed his own clothes, grabbing a towel and hanging it on the hook next to hers.

He stepped into the stall, keeping his head low and listening for a minute to the meandering song she hummed under the water. When he turned his water on, her humming stopped.

“Jamie?”

“Aye, just me. Sorry to disturb yer singing.”

He let the lukewarm water run over his skin and relaxed into it, his mind clearing the worries of the day. His meditation was interrupted by her voice a minute later.

“Do you have soap? I found this bar if you need it.”

The wall separating them came no higher than his chin and he risked a glance at her. Her skin was pink and glistening, scrubbed clean, and her smile matched, the grime of their travels finally slipping down the drain. She held the small round bar in her hands, just far enough on her side that he’d need to reach over for it. He noted her teasing expression.

“Do I need to come in there and get it?” He tested her.

She tilted her head and bit her lip. “I’d surely drop it from the shock of such an invasion of privacy.”

_Damn her_ , he thought.

She lifted the soap a bit higher and laughed as he took it, his face red. She rinsed the suds off her hands and turned off her water.

He tried and failed to not think about just where this soap had been, gliding over her smooth, slippery skin. The soft swell of her belly and arch of her hips. The long elegant lines of her neck flowing into the sharp angles of her clavicle and over the perfect curving slope of her bre -

“Jamie! Don’t take too long. You’ll be out of hot water soon.” The door thudded shut behind her and he leaned his forehead against the cool tile.

“Aye, I’m counting on it,” he said to the soap.

There were two small beds, pushed to opposite sides of the small room and she crawled under the crisp sheets, her muscles relaxing and welcoming sleep. Exhaustion had taken permanent residence in her frame and she pressed her cheek into the pillow, breathing in the musty linens and the crisp green humidity of the night air.

She’d left a small lamp lit in the corner near his bed. Upon entering the room his feet quietly tiptoed across the floor until he stubbed his toe on the edge of the bed and muttered a string of Gaelic curses that pulled her back from the edges of sleep. His nightshirt hung to mid-thigh, likely meant for someone a bit less tall, and she admired the muscular lines of his legs in the amber light, laughing to herself at his mumbling ire.

He crawled under his blankets and began to settle himself and suddenly he seemed so far away. All this time, for weeks, he’d been inches from her every night, his warmth seeking out hers. At first it was safety, to know she wasn’t alone. Then it became a comfort, a habit of their connection and a seed of trust. And now, now she felt a pull from her chest, from her hands, from her core. She needed him near.

“Jamie…”

Her voice sounded thin and reedy, as if it had fallen to the floor between them, unable to cross the chasm.

“Hmmm?” he hummed deep and gravelly, nearing sleep himself.

“Can I move my bed next to yours?”

He pushed himself up on his elbow, his face bathed in moonlight. “Of course.” He swung his legs down before she could move and strode across the floor to her side, holding a hand out to help her sit up.

They each took an end, hoping to avoid the grating noise of pushing the bed across the floor and quickly shuffled it over to the other side, flush against his. They pulled their blankets down and got back into their beds, now turning on their sides to face each other, bodies unconsciously moving closer as they settled themselves.

His fingers brushed back the curls fallen over her forehead and lingered on her wet hair. “Better?”

“Almost.” She crossed the small space between them and pressed her lips to his, tasting him, pressing her palm to the scratchy stubble of his jaw. A sigh escaped her throat as his arm snaked over her back, pulling her closer to him. Their bodies hummed through the thin layer of sheets and nightshirts. His lips left hers and followed the line of her jaw, seeking the press of her pulse against her neck. The moan traveling up her throat was swallowed by her yawn and he pulled back, hovering over her sleepy eyes and embarrassed smile.

“We should sleep.” His words sounded sincere, but his head dropped to her side again and he began nibbling on her ear, absent-minded murmurings spoken low against her skin.

“Yes, we should.”

He stopped kissing her at the sound of her voice, coming back to himself. Jamie pulled away slightly, resting his hand on her arm, tucked between them. “Sleep.”

“We don’t have to,” she whispered.

“Hmm. No, we don’t. But we’ll be yawning through this and I’m thinking I’d like our first time to be memorable for something other than me fallin’ asleep on ye.”

Her body shook in silent laughter, the tension dissipating. “Fair enough. Rain check.”

His hand reached across her body, fingers resting on her hip, his warmth faintly seeping through the blankets. Sleep took her, a heavy, restorative slumber broken only hours later by the hard knock on the door.

Claire squinted, the morning light flooding the room, and Jamie roused next to her, his hair standing on end, punctuating his bleary-eyed expression.

“Whassishmm,” he blurted as he sat up, pushing the blankets down to his knees.

Claire quickly pulled her nightshirt down and slowly sat up with him, amused by his confused state. She pushed her mass of hair back from her eyes and looked to the door, waiting for a reveal.

A muffled voice spoke. “Breakfast.” Footsteps receded down the hall and they pushed themselves out of bed with groans and creaks, casting quick glances at the other as they gathered the extra robes that had been left for them. They’d launder their clothes today and dress as their hosts.

Presentable, with their monk’s robes a bit too long on her and a bit too short on him, they entered the dining hall to the hushed whispers of the monks who did not shy from staring at their guests. Breakfast was bread, warm from the oven, and pears. A pot of honey sat in the center of the table. Across from them, a young monk sat and nodded, a friendly smile greeting them.

“We make the honey. Well, the bees do. I will show you when we are finished eating.”

It went like that the rest of the day. Greetings, pleasantries, tours around the grounds, as if their presence was expected. Not a disruption of any significance. But no one asked questions of them. Who they were, where they’d come from, where they hoped to go. And no one spoke of the man they had come for.

Jamie had been put to work hauling new gravel to the drive while Claire worked the gardens, both grateful for the distraction of labor. An injection of mundanity in an otherwise frantic and unpredictable existence.

The day grew late; storm clouds began to roll in and work was cut short to move inside. Claire ran for the covered walkway toward the room just as fat droplets began to fall, but she stopped short. The door was open, just a crack. She’d shut it after lunch, of that she was certain. Jamie was still putting away equipment, so he couldn’t be in there. Thunder cracked in the distance and she felt a familiar tension in her chest, her body sensing something wrong.

She slowly pushed the door open, her own heartbeat pulsing in her ears. A monk knelt on the floor next to her backpack, her clothes and belongings strewn about. He looked up at her, his face lined with rage and tracks of dried tears lined his skin. He was the one who had showed her the bees.

“What are you doing?” Her voice sounded feeble, afraid.

He flinched, the energy of his emotions boiling under the surface. “Where did you get this?” He held Frank’s note in his palm.

“You’re Fergus.” He did not acknowledge the name, only pursed his lips, anger winning the war. “Do you know what the note means? Can you help us?”

Fergus’ eyes focused over her shoulder and she felt Jamie’s presence behind her, his own protective hackles raised. Fergus nodded slightly, an acquiescence, and Jamie stepped forward, closing the door behind him.

“How did you know to come here, to the abbey?”

Claire sat on the edge of the bed, trying to remove any sense of threat. “Fiona. In Edinburgh. She said you might help us. And that she is sorry for revealing your whereabouts.”

Jamie nodded at her, relaxing his stance. “She was very helpful to us. A brave young woman.”

Fergus’ expression changed, softening with the hint of a smirk on his lips. “Oui, she is brave.”

Claire explained how she’d acquired the note, all she knew of Frank’s involvement with the secretive agency. Fergus gave away nothing in his expression, but looked at her intently when she was finished, his eyes turning watery.

“Amelie. She is my mother.”

Claire glanced at Jamie who shrugged, uncertain of what this could mean. “Why would your mother -?”

“It is him. I had suspected he had done something to her. She disappeared.” Fergus stared at the wall behind them. At nothing but his own memories. “He made the disease. I could not admit to myself what I knew, what he had done. But now, it is here, on this note. I cannot pretend otherwise.”

Jamie sat down next to Claire and took her hand in his. “Fergus, who do ye mean?”

“My father. Paul Rakoczy. But you perhaps know him as Paul St. Germain.”

Claire’s jaw dropped, a wordless breath caught in her throat. “St. Germain? SGI? He is your father?”

“Mmm. He gave me his DNA and little else. Destroyed my mother. Destroyed a great deal more than her, it seems.” His face rippled, and he ran his hands through his hair, swallowing the lump in his throat

Jamie cleared his throat and spoke. “Fergus, if ye -”

“What would you ask of me?” he interrupted, his voice shaking. “I am to disappoint you, I think. I am a coward hiding from him and his monsters. I am no fighter. I could not help my mother. I cannot help you.” He stood abruptly and walked out of the room, leaving Jamie and Claire in stunned silence.

Jamie moved his hand to her back, rubbing in soothing circles. “We’ll talk to him again. I’m sure he’ll answer some -”

She stood without a word and walked to the door, lingering for a moment, looking to the floor, as if to consider her next words.

“Claire?”

The door closed quietly behind her and he was left alone, wondering what the hell he’d done to clear the room. Jamie moved to follow her and paused, his mind closing in on itself. Turning back, he knelt to pick up her clothes. They’d been laundered and folded, and he set about refolding them all, distracting himself from the thoughts in the back of his mind. He was unsuited to this venture. He had nothing to offer her, to really help her. When he’d exhausted that avenue, his mind went to the night before, how he’d refused her and perhaps she’d interpreted that as rejection. All the scenarios of how he’d fucked this up played in his mind.

Jamie stared at the newly folded clothes, his hand lingering on the shirt at the top. She wore that shirt in the bothie, where they’d huddled together, sharing stories under the relentless din of rain and wind. The cuffs had been dark with soot from tending the fire, a stark contrast to the elegant curve of her wrist. Had it happened then, when he’d lost himself to her? Or was it in the hundred moments before and after, a patchwork stitching their souls together?

The thoughts stirred him, pressing into his limbs and propelling him into the hall to find her.

The storm had begun to drop heavy rain and winds gusted, blowing the water sideways against the walls and rattling shutters. The kitchen, the dining hall, the library, the prayer rooms. She was nowhere. Twenty minutes had passed, and the storm was raging now. He had a horrible moment of panic, standing in a dimly lit hall, that she had gone outside, had lost her way on the grounds in the dark. His heart sped, and he felt himself breaking apart inside. A voice behind him startled him.

“If you are looking for her, she may be at the springs. The door was ajar.”

“The springs?”

“Follow this hall and down the first staircase. There is a door on the left leading down.” The monk nodded to Jamie and continued on his way, carrying an armful of linens.

The door was barely visible, down a hall without lights. He descended the stone stairs slowly, unsure of his steps as they spiraled down. It went down a great deal farther than he’d expected, until it began to feel like a dream. At the bottom he found himself in a humid cavern of stone, pools of hot springs lit by amber lights. She sat on the edge of a pool, wearing only a long shirt, feet dangling in the steaming water. She’d heard him on the steps and turned her head to look, her face shadowed.

He’d changed into work pants earlier in the day, and after discarding his socks and shoes, rolled the pants up to drop his feet into the water next to hers, hissing at the unexpected heat of it.

“Did that singe the hair off my legs? Felt like it.”

She smiled, but her face remained tight with emotion. He sat silently then, waiting for her to speak.

“I’m sorry for running off.”

“Ye dinna need to apologize.”

She rested her hand on his thigh. “I just… It was so much to take in. If SGI is truly behind the virus, then it’s possible I might have contributed to it. What if something I worked on helped them to develop this?” Her voice was rough from crying and she bit back more tears as she spoke to him now.

“Ye could not have known, Claire. It’s unthinkable. Ye canna start down that road. All that matters now is stopping them.”

“Stop them? Jamie, how can we do that?”

“What do these men fear most? Truth. Exposure. If the world kent their actions, do ye think they’d accept the SGI forces running roughshod over governments, taking over finances, dictating everything in our lives? Did ye no’ hear what Raymond said?”

She looked at him, confusion washing over her expression. “Raymond?”

“Sorcha. In the Gaelic, Claire is Sorcha. And Sorcha is light. He said ye are here to be the light. We will find the truth. Fergus will help us. And ye’ll be the light for the world to see it.”

“Jamie,” her voice cracked.

“I sat up there after ye left, letting all my doubts have the run of my mind, feeling useless and hopeless and just...less. And I got up and looked for ye, and couldna find ye, and when I thought for a moment ye might be out in that wicked storm, I felt like someone had torn my chest open. But I felt ye tugging, like ye held the end of a string running through my heart, and all those doubts washed away. I belong with you. And we will do this together.”

A sound escaped her throat. A cry. A laugh. An exhale. Her fingers twined with his and she met his eyes, shimmering like the surface of the water. His words were wrapped in truth, as they always were. And truth has a way of illuminating the recesses lost in shadows. “I have never doubted you, Jamie. When I first ran, I was running blind, fleeing. And you, finding me under that waterfall… I don’t believe in fate, but maybe your Urisk was behind it.”

He dipped his head, laughing softly.

“From that moment on, you settled in here.” She tapped her chest lightly. “And all the parts of myself that had gone dormant in that bunker began to wake. My job, my life - I’ve only ever wanted to heal people. To find medicines that would ease suffering, fight diseases. When Fergus spoke of his father, of what SGI had done, it was a truth I’d already begun to understand - that I’d been used and discarded, my purpose ripped from me and perverted. I just was so angry. And I didn’t want you to see it.” She looked around at the light dancing on the wet stone walls reflecting off the water. “I didn’t even know this place existed. I was just looking for a dark place to be alone.”

She went silent a moment, her feet lazily swirling the water between them. “I sat down here and my mind kept returning to that moment in the Highlands when we were standing on the bridge, watching the eagle diving through the treetops. I felt strong and free with you next to me, in a way I never had before. Something new had formed, more than just me or you. Your strength and mine. Whatever this new thing is, it’s inextricably woven into us, and we become more together. And I love it. I love _us_.”

His returning smile lit up his face. “Mo ghraidh.” His forehead rested gently against hers and their breaths came quicker, the rush of confession and desire heating their blood. His lips found hers as his hand grasped the back of her head, each point of contact igniting what had been growing inside them for weeks. They chased each other in the kiss, the push and pull of tongues and lips and breath intoxicating them.

She pulled away, eyes searching his in the dim light, a final assurance. Her fingers began to work the buttons of his shirt, shaking. He stilled her and wrenched the shirt over his head, the heat of the spring water drawing beads of sweat on his skin, darkening the hairs on his chest. She’d seen him before, smelled the earth and sweat and essence of him as they moved through the wilds, molecules vibrating into each other’s space. But now, his smell drew her body tight, a wire snapping her to him until she’d pulled them both back from the water, straddling his hips and pulling his mouth to hers again, tongues pressing forth and teeth scraping skin.

He’d imagined this happening slowly. A careful unveiling of bodies and kisses left reverently. But the unveiling had already happened. In their words, the last vestiges of invulnerable uncertainties discarded. The reverence had been in her declaration of love, in his breathless return. And when she pressed her hips into him and her shirt rode up, his fingers followed it, trailing over smooth skin, uninterrupted. She wore nothing beneath the shirt and his breath stopped. He wished only to devour her, catch her screams in his mouth and swallow them, diving into her for more.

She met his eyes and raised her arms. He pulled her shirt over her head and it fell to the stone floor beside them, disappearing in the shadow of her form astride him. His mouth found the delicate skin of her neck while his hand traced the contours of her breast, teasing only for a moment before pulling her nipple between his fingers, drawing a gasp from her whimpers. Her sounds were as intoxicating to him as her taste and feel. And he needed more.

Jamie grabbed their shirts and dropped them behind her, then lowered her back, off his lap, her head pillowed against the stone. She lay bare before him and he discarded his clothing, relieved to be free of restraint and shaking with need. He hovered over her, struck dumb by the beauty below him.

“I’m not tired now,” she teased. His returning grin was not playful, but the answering of a promise.

She’d pulled at his arms, but he resisted, lowering his mouth to her breast and working his tongue across her nipple as her cries echoed off the walls. He thought he heard her say his name, was certain she was saying it again, when he lowered his mouth and pressed his tongue to her core. Her body convulsed at the sudden sensation, arching against him. He felt her hand grip his hair, riding him, tugging in desperate need for more. His fingers sunk into her, and the impossibly wet, slick warmth of her sent his own hips pressing forward, aching to bury himself in her. His tongue found a rhythm that pushed her to the edge and when his fingers curled up inside her, she let loose a cry and shook around him, inside and out, her hands grasping at his skin.

“Jamie. Come here,” her voice rasped between unsteady breaths.

He sat back on his legs, taking himself in his hand as he watched her. He turned to the spring next to them, the slick water lapping against the rocks. “No. You come here.”

Jamie lowered himself into the water, stepping down from the ledge so the water reached his chest. He held his hand out to her and watched her swing her legs around into the water. She lowered herself in as he grasped her waist, pulling her to him. Her legs found his hips and their mouths met in a luxurious kiss, deep and slow. She felt him hard between them and took him in her hand at last, sighing along with him at the feel of his smooth skin, the pulsing strength of him straining against her.

“I need you,” she breathed against his mouth.

His arm tightened around her waist and he lifted her, the semi-weightless sensation of the water making them both dizzy. She pushed against his shoulders to lift herself, so he could free his hands and when he pulled her back to him, he sheathed himself in a smooth motion that shook her limbs, setting in motion a new wave that pulsed throughout her. He groaned against her neck, unable to quiet himself at the feel of her enveloping him. “God, Claire.”

It was effortless, as it had been from the beginning. Running with him, they had joined from the moment she touched his shoulders under the waterfall. Each look and touch and whispered word under the stars were steps in the path leading to this. He moved in her and they drew from each other new promises. The heat flooded her veins as he drove harder, faster. The words came from her throat wrapped in a moan, breathed into the slick skin of his neck. “I love you.” He cried out, and she felt him then, the stretch, the expansion of his release, and she convulsed around him, collapsing, floating in the dark of their joining.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fergus joins Jamie and Claire in their quest to take down SGI. They devise a plan to sneak into the headquarters to get information to expose them.

“I’ve met a few men named Fergus over the years. Not one of them French.” Jamie leaned against the stone pillar in the shaded courtyard, his hands stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans.

Fergus knelt in the center, near the fountain, scrubbing a stiff-bristled brush over garden tools caked with earth. The previous night’s storm had ushered in a cold front with biting winds announcing the impending winter. He dropped the brush and pushed himself to his feet, wiping his hands on the front of his work pants.

Jamie noted his dress, civilian attire, curiously out of place. “Who gave ye that name?”

The fountain at the center of the courtyard was ringed by a thick stone border and Fergus sat, twisting around to dip his hands into the water, rubbing the mud from the creases of his skin. Jamie took a seat next to him, bracing his forearms on his thighs, settling in to the conversation he intended to have.

Fergus stretched his hands, working out the muscles, sore from gripping the tools. “Fiona.”

Jamie twisted his head back to look at Fergus, surprised by the answer.

“A few years ago, after my mother disappeared, I began to worry for my own safety, so I ran away.” Fergus straightened his shoulders, as if steeling himself to dive into his memories. “I was twenty years old, frightened, penniless, so I started stealing from people to survive.” He paused for Jamie to react, but Jamie only waited for him to continue.

“I wanted to get away from France, from my father. It didn’t really matter to me where I went. And I found myself in Edinburgh. One day I was picking pockets at the Greater Grass market. People were very nervous, still, from the sickness, so it was difficult to get close. I was caught and arrested, but they did not take me to jail. It was not the police, it turned out. I ended up in a warehouse where they explained that they knew who I was, that they’d been following me.”

Jamie straightened. “Did ye ken who they were?”

“Not exactly. British agency, branch of MI6 perhaps. They wanted to recruit me to spy on my father. I resisted for a while, but in the end, what else could I do? I had nothing. They offered money. So, I agreed, and they trained me on methods; how to avoid detection, ways to speak and act. That sort of thing. I did not tell them I was quite good with computers. I worried they would keep using me forever if they knew.”

“Are ye now?” Jamie asked, intrigued. Fergus nodded and rolled his eyes.

“And then, one day, they took me to meet Fiona. She was going to show me how to use the cameras, recorders and such. She was the first person who seemed real to me. She was very kind. And her cat liked me.”

“Ye went to her flat?”

“Just once. They were testing me out with the SGI goons in Edinburgh, seeing how close I could get. But things went poorly. I could tell they were suspicious, and I wanted to call it off. I was nearly found out. I knew what would happen if they discovered who I was. And I couldn’t think straight anymore, frozen with fear. Fi was in my ear, and she directed me back to her place and took care of me while I fell apart. Her cat slept on my lap. We told them my transmitter had malfunctioned.”

“Why do ye suppose she lied for ye?” Jamie asked.

“For many of these men, it becomes something of a game. Pawns instead of people. Not for her. It was more personal for her.” Fergus ran his hand through his hair. “I pushed back when they told me their plans for me, what they’d ask of me. It was insanity, certain death. They thought they knew more than me about how my father worked, and so, when I said no, they did not accept it. I was threatened with imprisonment and worse if I did not go by their orders. So, Fi helped me. She risked herself to get me away, to give me a new identity. I left Claudel Rokoczy behind and became Fergus Rousseau. I told her Fergus was not French and she just said, ‘Weel, ye’re half Scottish now.’”

Jamie laughed at his impression of Fiona. “Sounds like her. Fiona’s a bit of a rogue, it seems.”

“I was to disappear, so I do not know how she found me here.” He paused for a moment, his face tense in concentration. “Do you think she put a tracking chip in my neck or something?” he asked with a smirk.

“Hmmph. Best leave it. In case we lose you along the way.”

At Jamie’s words, Fergus stood and began pacing, biting his lip and staring down at his feet.

“Fergus.” Jamie’s voice echoed off the surrounding stone and Fergus stopped, looking back at him. “We’re not them, Fergus. Claire and I, we’re just two people trying to right these wrongs. But we canna do it alone. Ye have my word, I will do everything I can to keep ye safe, to help ye find out the truth about yer mother.”

Fergus’ eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open, as if the words had stopped on his lips, uncertain and frozen in disbelief. Jamie stood and walked to him, holding out his hand.

“You would?”

“Aye.”

Fergus slowly raised his own hand and grasped Jamie’s, squeezing. “Then I give you my word as well. I am with you.”

Jamie nodded, smiling. Fergus’ story had stirred his heart, the feelings for his own missing family washing over him, squeezing his chest. The loss of them ate away at him, and his thoughts turned to Claire, what she had become to him.

_I need ye, Sassenach._

As if on cue, their attention was drawn to a corner of the courtyard where Claire stepped out of the shadows, a basket of greens at her side. Her eyes were heavy with unshed tears, and her face shone bright with gratitude for the men who would stand by her side now.

Fergus walked to her and stopped, dropping his head. An apology. A promise. “I will go with you.”

* * *

 

The three of them stayed huddled in a corner of the library for hours that evening, when most of the monks had retired or gone to pray. Fergus recounted every detail he knew of his father’s home, his habits and hobbies. When he ate and with whom. It was astounding how many things a boy desperate for his father’s attention noticed.

Claire had a fair amount of knowledge about the research and development headquarters, but they kept coming back to one worry above all others. Could Claire get in with her clearance code or had they revoked it when she’d fled the bunker? Logic seemed to point toward revoking it, leaving them with no way to access labs or offices. The proof had to be in there, but they hadn’t a clue where to begin.

“Won’t they know if we hack into the computers? Assuming we can even do that once we get inside. Would there be some safeguard alerting them to a breach? Please, stop me if I sound like I’ve watched too many Jason Bourne movies. I honestly have no clue.” Claire threw her hands up, embarrassed, while Jamie barked out a laugh. Fergus, however, had fallen silent, his brow knotted in concentration.

“Fergus, we can dye yer hair in a petrol station bathroom on the way,” Jamie teased. Claire squeezed his arm and nodded toward Fergus. His face was stony, his eyes unfocused.

“Fergus?” Claire asked gently.

He looked at her, and his face relaxed, slowly transforming into a beaming smile. “You have got it!”

She mirrored his joyful smile back at him, but with an added aura of confusion. “Wonderful! What have I got?”

* * *

 

Morning was just hinting at its arrival, the blue light of the pre-dawn hours sneaking through the gaps in the curtains. The hair of Jamie’s thighs scratched against her legs as he pressed himself closer, seeking her out before he’d fully woken. The drowsy warmth of their cocoon kept her own waking at bay and Claire pushed back against him, sighing at the press of his hard length against her backside. Jamie’s further waking was signaled by the appearance of his hand, gliding lazily over her hip, fingers trailing over her abdomen to the heavy warmth of her breasts. She arched further into him with the movement of his hand. When he pressed his fingers into her, she woke fully to her own desperate whimpers.

She rolled to her stomach and he followed her. Pulling her hips up, he entered her with a groan. His pleasure fell from his lips as deep, throaty sounds, groans chasing gasps. She was briefly aware of her own, higher pitched sounds, bursting from her with each slap of their skin. His hand grasped her shoulder, pressing her into the mattress, her cries lost in the pillow. She felt her body vibrating like a plucked string, the notes louder and louder until she no longer heard her own voice, nor his behind her. Her orgasm crashed over her from core to fingertips, reverberating through his final thrusts.

He collapsed on top of her, steadying himself to not crush her, but his weight still substantial enough to render her effectively trapped. The feeling was indescribably wonderful; to be covered by him, the heat of their lovemaking trapped between their skins, his teeth gently biting the skin at the crook of her neck.

“Good morning,” she sighed.

“Ready for more adventures, _mo nighean donn_?” he laughed, leaving a kiss on her shoulder before pushing himself up.

She sighed. “No.”

* * *

 

The sun burned orange through the grove of oaks on the hill behind the garage, tucked down a drive invisible from the rest of the abbey. Fergus had bid farewell to two of the monks he’d befriended and quietly slipped away to meet Jamie and Claire at the car, already loaded with their packs and food.

Jamie, Claire, and Fergus began their drive toward the SGI Headquarters outside Paris with a goal, but still without a plan.

“You’re sure it would be safe to link directly into the system?” Claire questioned him for the fifth time since leaving the abbey.

“Oui. Well, safe is perhaps not the word. They will be alerted, but it will seem as though the system is down. If we do it at night, it may go unnoticed for a bit, and we buy some time to find what we need,” Fergus assured her.

Claire stretched against the back of the seat, tapping her finger on the window. “You never said if you knew the other name on the note. Scalamandre.”

Fergus blew out his breath and muttered something in French. “It is my father’s boat. I am sure he chose the name for the operation from that, because it is the only thing he really loves. Aside from power and money, of course.”

“You’ve seen it?” Claire asked.

“He went to it often. In Le Havre. I have been there a few times. I think he had the boat before he was very successful. It reminds him of where he came from, perhaps.” Fergus grimaced, souring with the memories. “He had this framed picture of it on the wall of his office, with its name and dock number engraved in the frame.”

“I don’t suppose there will be a folder named Scalamandre floating around on the servers,” Jamie smirked from the driver’s seat.

“It will be hidden in something else. He is arrogant, but he is not a fool.”

They took their lunch at a rest stop twenty miles from the headquarters, sitting in silence at a picnic table under the shade of a maple tree, its leaves tinged with red. Claire took a swig of water from Jamie’s canteen and thumbed a crumb off his chin. “Assuming things are the same as when I left, there will be janitorial, maintenance - that sort of staff coming through the lower-level service entrance in the evenings. They often work overnight to not disrupt the day employees. It’s the least security, but it’s going to expose us. We won’t get in without someone else going in, too.”

“We canna just walk up and pretend to be someone we’re not. They’ve got to have lists they check. Approved people.” Jamie ran a hand through his hair and noticed Claire’s amused look. “What?”

“Nothing. You just sound like me,” she winked.

“Hmmph.”

Fergus cleaned up the table and stood, ready to return to the car. “We can’t know until we get there. We will get close and watch, then devise a plan. It is all we can do.”

The first part of the plan involved hiding the car behind some trees not far from the headquarters’ perimeter. Getting past the gate in a car would be tricky. Walking in, less so. Waiting until the daylight began to fade, they inched their way closer to the guarded gate, watching as service vehicles came and went. Fewer and fewer vehicles arrived as darkness descended, and they knew they needed to make their move soon.

Fergus gestured across the road as they sat motionless in a thicket of vegetation. “The guard goes back to his cigarette sitting on the tray in the guardhouse as soon as he waves a vehicle through. He’s not paying attention. If we walk alongside the next truck he waves through, we can run down the slope where the light does not reach.” Fergus had a glint in his eyes at the realization that they might actually manage this, and Claire felt a rush of confidence at the sight of it.

“I should be able to get to the back door, then, without causing a scene.” Claire had donned the SGI uniform once again, especially appreciating the black fabric at the moment. They decided she would lead them, so if the driver looked at their passenger side mirror, they’d see the uniform and think nothing of it. The next truck to arrive was a food supply truck, substantial enough to provide good cover, and they rose from their crouched position in the bushes.

Claire swallowed bile rising in her throat, the thundering beat of her heart sending a wave of adrenaline crashing over her. The fear that had propelled her out of the SGI bunker, now sent her hurtling forward to sneak her way back into SGI’s world.

They lined up by the truck, hands braced against its side to move as soon as it did. The guard spoke only a few words and waved the truck through. The acceleration was far greater than they’d anticipated, and their panicked feet tripped over themselves to keep up just far enough to duck into the shadows beyond the gate. Jamie’s body rolled over hers as they dove to the ground and she was grateful for the thick grass cushioning her from the impact of his weight.

She felt the dew on the grass starting to soak into her clothes and glanced back at the guardhouse to confirm his attention was diverted. The guard leaned against the wall, blowing smoke rings into the twilight.

The entrance door of the lower level was propped open as a worker moved back and forth through it, hauling hand carts of boxes in. Jamie and Fergus sprinted to the shadows of a large utility box beside the building, while Claire stood, brushed herself off, and casually walked down the drive into the glaring light at the entrance.

The worker, a scrawny young man with a bandanna tied over his long hair, raised a brow at her presence, but did not seem too bothered, nodding at her, smiling. He pushed the hand cart up the ramp of the truck and secured it in the back, then jumped off the back, pushing the doors of the truck closed. He turned to close the propped-open door to the building and Claire stepped forward before he’d gotten far.

“Pas de problème, je m’en chargerai. Bonne soirée,” Claire said, smiling brightly at him. She began to pull the door closed, and paused as he started to drive away, holding it slightly ajar. She glanced down the hall to make sure it was clear, then called to Jamie and Fergus, who were tucked against the back of the building. There was no helping the security cameras, but if they succeeded, it wouldn’t matter. The dominoes would already be falling.

The lower level of the building was a maze of storage rooms full of office supplies and lab equipment. They quietly moved through the halls, risking whispers questioning their next moves. It was quieter than they’d anticipated, with only distant sounds reminding them they weren’t alone. Fergus held his arm out, halting them. He looked up to the ceiling where a ventilation shaft ran and began to follow it, turning down a long hall that ended at a heavy door with a window. They’d found it. Servers lined the walls, lights flickering in the dark room.

Jamie squeezed Claire’s hand and rested his hand against the door. “Looks like the night sky in there. Full of twinkling stars.”

“Door is locked.” Fergus frowned, frustrated at being so close yet so far. “Merde.”

Claire nudged Jamie to the side and peered into the room, the hum of the machines sending tiny vibrations through the door. “Stars. Didn’t Raymond say something about stars, Jamie?”

He furrowed his brow, trying to recall. “Aye. He did. Something like ‘don’t be distracted by the stars above…’”

“...and miss the snake at your feet,” she finished. Her eyes looked to the floor and followed the server cables snaking along the base of the machines in thick bundles, where they disappeared down a hole in the floor. “There. Fergus. The cables are coming up from another room below us.”

“We need to find the origination point. Try all the doors,” Fergus whispered frantically.

Jamie grinned at Claire and kissed her temple before turning back down the hall, looking for unlocked doors. Their hearts stopped at each doorknob that failed to turn. Hope began to dissolve as they tried door after door in the dark halls, and fear started settling in their guts. Each passing minute another chance for them to be caught. They’d have to give up at some point and sneak away into the night.

“We’ve got to go, Fergus. This isna working. Nothing is open,” Jamie pleaded with him. They stood just inside the back entrance, deflated.

“There were vents in the floor. We haven’t seen any utilities, so they’ve got to be below us. There has to be a way down,” Claire huffed in frustration.

Fergus leaned back against the wall, cradling his backpack with his laptop against his chest. He closed his eyes, calming himself, then, upon opening them again, got a peculiar look on his face. Jamie turned his head to the wall behind him where Fergus was looking.

“ _Ifrinn_! Or we could go through the door with the picture of descending stairs on it.” Jamie turned the knob slowly and looked back at Claire and Fergus, grinning.

They had completely overlooked it when they’d first entered the building, too concerned watching for people and heading down hallways, looking for the servers. The stairs lead to a basement where they found the utilities. It was mostly concrete and steel, fluorescent lights casting a greenish glow over the space. One corner contained a room. They made their way to it and pushed against the old door. Locked. Jamie looked around, refusing to believe this was the end. The walls were unfinished, pipes and vents criss-crossing along the ceiling. He walked the perimeter of the room and stopped in the far corner. “Here!” He pointed up at a ventilation panel in the wall and grinned back at Fergus. “Think ye can fit through that?”

They found some crates to give a little height to boost Fergus up. Jamie had brought some climbing rope inside his jacket, and Fergus tied it around his waist should he be unable to open the door from inside. Fergus climbed up and lowered himself into the room, knocking over a chair in the process and sending their hearts into a panic, but the sound died in the room. A minute later, the door swung open to reveal Fergus, bowing formally to welcome them in.

“The original servers are here. The ones upstairs are likely just expansions. This is incredible good fortune!” He immediately set to work, pulling out his laptop and removing his own cables from the backpack. After a few long minutes examining where the cables all went, he looked back at Jamie and Claire, a sheen of sweat on his face, eyes alight. “Vous êtes prêts?”

She looked to Jamie, his face shadowed as he bent over the table on the other side of Fergus. He looked up, his lips curved into a faint smile, the room dissolving to the space between them. “Je suit prêt.”

Claire leaned over the table next to Fergus and nodded. “Let’s go in.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire, Jamie, and Fergus attempt to escape SGI with files proving SGI's guilt in developing and spreading the virus, and find they must make a difficult decision about their next step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will not be an update for this story next week as I'll be in NYC, but I'll resume with Chapter 15 posting October 15.

Fergus plugged the ethernet cord into his laptop and began working his magic. At the press of a key the lights on the servers went from green to red. “Network’s down and we’re in. Where do we go?”

Claire scanned the directory on the screen and tried to make sense of it. She’d only ever worked within her own section’s network. “Okay,” she pointed at the screen, “I think this designates lab divisions. We should be able to find director files from there.” Another branch opened, and she scanned the names, half of whom were unrecognizable to her. Things had changed. “Here. This woman oversaw the testing labs. If anything was developed, it would go through her.”

The folders were a maze of alphanumeric names, indecipherable without understanding the method. Jamie fidgeted, leaning out the door at phantom sounds. “We dinna have time. Can we just copy these files and run?”

Fergus shook his head. “They are too big. Would take too long to get everything. We’ve got to narrow our field.”

“Open one of the folders. I want to see what the next level shows.” Claire pointed at one and Fergus did as she instructed. It opened to an additional folder structure with project-specific information. “Okay, these codes are individual projects. We just need to figure out which one is Scalamandre.”

The word sounded strange on her lips. They’d barely spoken it aloud, as if it held some dark power. Fergus had cringed at the sound, shrinking into himself. The numbers and letters began to blur as they scrolled. Hundreds and hundreds of projects.

“What’s a project you worked on, Claire? Something to help us decipher the naming.” Jamie nodded his head encouragingly.

She bit her lip, pondering. “I worked on a gene mutation project that lasted most of the years I was at SGI. We called it Everest, but I don’t know if it was officially known as that.” They looked back at the list for the letters, scanning until their eyes crossed. “It was GL06 I remember.”

“This? EVTGL06?” Fergus looked up at her expectantly.

“Open it and let’s see.”

The screen lit up their faces with the library of project folders and Claire beamed. “That’s it. Okay, so… First two letters and last letter? We should find something starting with SCE? Back out, Fergus.” Her body shivered at the rush, the nearness of success electrifying the air.

“There!” Fergus exclaimed, his finger smudging the screen over the folder. He clicked to open. “ _Merde_! It’s encrypted. I need time. I cannot copy anything without decrypting first.”

“You can do it?” Claire asked.

“I doubt they are using anything too complex within their own network since they wouldn’t expect anyone to get in from outside considering the safety precautions. So, this is probably just in place to keep random people from opening it without authority. We shall see,” Fergus smiled hopefully.

Jamie nodded and went out into the main room, nervously pacing as the minutes ticked by. He’d been stuck on a mountain once, watching storm clouds gather from miles away, facing the decision to go back down, just short of the summit. The risk of staying was incredible. Absurd to consider. And still he had to fight himself to leave. To live another day to see his sister’s family. He had failed them when the nomads came. But this… To come this far and walk away. To admit defeat to Goliath. It would mean failing on a far grander scale, failing himself, failing Claire, failing the world.

He leaned against the handrail of the staircase and froze as a crack of light grew larger on the wall across from him. Light from the upstairs hall through the opening door of the stairwell. _Shit!_ He ran back to the room. “Fergus! There’s someone coming! We need to hide.”

“I need one more minute! I cannot stop now - it will corrupt the files!” He hissed, throwing his hands in the air, frustrated.

Jamie nodded, blinking rapidly, trying to devise a plan. He grabbed a handful of Fergus’ ethernet cables from the desk and pulled his knife from his pocket, quickly slicing and roughly stabbing at them, leaving them partially severed, and ran over to the cable bundle snaking down into the room from the ceiling. Jumping on a chair to reach them, he shoved the cut cables in with the rest and turned back to Claire. “Get behind the door. Fergus, get under the desk.”

Fergus looked at him in confusion.

“Now! I’m going to distract them. Be still and be quiet.”

He flicked off the lights, sending the room into darkness. As Fergus crawled under the desk, Jamie threw his jacket over him to hide the light of the laptop and pushed a chair against him. Claire pressed her back against the wall behind the door, desperately trying to calm her breathing. Jamie grabbed a flashlight from a storage shelf and leapt onto the chair he’d used to reach the cables. The room had a drop ceiling and he pulled one section away, sliding it down so it was wedged against the cable bundles. Then, as he heard the footsteps approaching, he cut a small bit of his skin by his elbow, smearing the blood on his fingertips.

A man rounded the corner to enter the room and stopped at the sight of Jamie, flashlight in his mouth, wiping blood off on his pants. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

“Oh, sorry if I frightened ye. I’ve got the power for the room down because a rat got in, chewed through yer network wires.”

The man’s shadowed face went into a clear state of distress at the word “rat.” “Did you catch it?”

“Weel, not alive. Flashlight over the head a few times did the trick, but a bit messy.” Jamie made a show of wiping against his pants some more and was pleased to hear a gagging sound from the man’s throat. “Fairly certain I saw a second one scurry out where ye’re standing now.”

The man pressed himself against the door, causing Claire to press even tighter against the wall, now on her tiptoes. “The network is down, and I need to get in here to fix it.”

“Oh aye, of course. I just need some time to clean up and make sure none of the other electrical wires are damaged. Don’t want a fire to spark down here. I’ll see if I can find that second rat, too. Give me fifteen minutes?”

The man muttered under his breath and wrapped his hand around the doorknob. “Fine. I’ll be back in fifteen.” He swung the door closed behind him, leaving Claire gasping, now exposed against the wall. Jamie didn’t move or speak for a minute, waiting to hear the man ascend the stairs. When he did, the room let out a collective breath.

“Mary, Michael and Bride,” Jamie exclaimed, grabbing the edge of the table with force, his body tight with adrenaline.

“Jamie, I don’t know how you came up with that, but it was incredible, and I will kiss you when we get out of here.” Claire grinned at him, holding her hand against her thundering heart.

“I’ll hold ye to that, Sassenach. Fergus, how is yer decrypting coming along?”

Fergus poked his head up from under the desk. “Successfully decrypted. Files are transferring. They’re big. Must be some video in here. About three minutes left.”

As soon as Fergus gave the thumbs up, they headed for the stairs, stopping for a moment as Jamie grabbed a wrench lying next to a heating unit. If the man showed up again before they got out, he’d need a weapon. Claire and Fergus followed Jamie, staying back a bit so he could check the hall.

“Hall is clear,” he whispered. “I dinna ken his whereabouts, so we need to run. No stopping for anything or anyone. We head for the area we first went after getting through the gate. Claire, do ye think ye can approach the gate guard and get him to go into the building?”

Her brows rose at his suggestion and she felt her body somehow tense more than it already was. She nodded. “Yes. I’ll tell him another guard in here is asking for him, offer to watch the gate for him. With luck, he’ll trust me.”

Luck. It had become a living thing, needing tending and encouragement and praise, like Jamie’s Urisk. Had it stayed in Scotland, tied to the land, waiting for their offerings on lines carved in stone? Was it luck that guided their feet to Hugh, to Fiona, to Tien Cho, to Raymond, to Fergus? Or was it simply people making a choice to do the right thing at the right time?

Night had fully descended as Jamie pushed the door open, letting a blast of cool air into the corridor. He squinted, trying to adjust to the darkness beyond the security light. No trucks to follow out. No time to wait. They ran straight across the grass and dove down just below the guard gate as before, waiting a moment before chancing their escape.

Jamie reached across the space between them and grasped Claire’s hand, cold and wet from the grass. She turned her head and found him staring at her, his eyes following the lines of her face like he’d never seen her before. This thing, this love that felt somehow more than love, ran through her like her life’s blood. She knew he felt it too, even now, crouched in the grass with nothing but danger before them.

Fergus touched her shoulder, and she nodded. Time to go.

Claire stood and coolly walked to the guardhouse, while Jamie and Fergus began to crawl closer as she got the guard’s attention. Jamie felt nothing but nausea watching her, terrified that this might not work. And then she smiled and gestured toward the building. He’d seen that smile before, back at the pub in Edinburgh. A little charming trick that seemed to work wonders. She reached into the doorway and when she pulled her arm out, she had a cigarette dangling from her fingers. A minute later the guard stepped out and stood a bit too close to her, smiling and holding onto her arm. And just as Jamie started to feel another level of agitation at the situation, the guard turned toward the drive and started jogging down to the building, turning his head back and smiling at her.

They waited for her signal, given at the moment the guard disappeared inside the the building. She hit the button for the gate and they ran as fast as they’d ever run, until their lungs burned and their muscles screamed. Not a word was said until they were driving for a solid five minutes. The light of the dash glowing over Fergus’ face, he looked into the rearview mirror and smiled brightly at Jamie and Claire in the back, leaning into each other. “Anyone else hungry?”

Tucked into a booth of a brightly colored burger joint just outside the perimeter of Paris, Jamie and Claire held their breath as Fergus opened the Scalamandre files. Proposals from years ago on contagion control experiments, using water supplies to deliver psychotropic drugs, detailed extrapolations on SGI’s potential to take over public health and safety oversights and potential government agents who could assist in the transferral of power. Their fries grew cold as they began to realize the depth of information they’d gathered. This was it.

The same names appeared over and over in the documents, classified for only a select few. In one memo, addressed to Rakoczy and the other main players, Claire found one of her projects referenced. All her fears of being inadvertently complicit washed over her in the glaring light of the diner.

Tears burned in her eyes as she touched Fergus’ hand. “I’m sorry. For your mother. For what you’ve gone through. For everything.” They spilled down her cheeks and she swallowed a sob, exhaustion pulling down her walls.

Fergus squeezed her hand and shook his head. “No. You do not get to take away any of the blame from him. He will own everything he has done, and I will make him apologize to you for using you. None of this is your fault, you must know that.”

Jamie pulled her head to his shoulder, wrapping her into his warmth. “We have the means to expose them now. And it’s because you ran, you survived. Time to bring the bastards down.” His jaw clenched, a renewed vigor fueled by anger coursing through him. “What are the videos, Fergus?”

Fergus turned the audio low on the laptop and played the first video. It was compressed and somewhat grainy, but he knew instantly who it was. The way her hand ran through her hair, just as his own did. His mother sat in a chair in a sparse room, then suddenly stood, looking around as if she saw something. Her arms batted at the air as she yelled incoherently, a phantom evil threatening her. Fergus’ throat closed, and he felt dizzy, unable to process the horror of seeing her like this.

“My mother… God.”

“It’s dated three years ago,before the outbreaks. Are there more?” Claire asked.

Fergus’ hand shook over the trackpad. He pressed play on another dated three months ago. “Another woman, same type of room. She looks calmer. Maybe some other counteractive drug?”

“We need to find where this is. Some document must give a location.” Jamie leaned back in the booth, rubbing his hands on his thighs. The anxiety and adrenaline were wearing them all down, and there was no end in sight.

They combed through documents while the diner got quieter. The employees’ glances lingered, and they began to feel the fear pressing on their necks. Pages of experiment observations and funding memos and a general morass of damning words that got them no closer to finding Fergus’ mother - until Jamie noticed coordinates.

“What are they pointing to? What’s this about?” he asked Claire, nervously drumming his fingers on his leg.

“This could be it! This looks like some kind of schedule.” She quickly scribbled the coordinates on a napkin and handed it to Jamie. “Still have a working GPS?”

He frowned. “Maybe. If ye can find me some batteries.”

Fergus slid out of the booth and stood, shaking out the stiff muscles in his legs. “What kind?”

Jamie smiled, unsure of what Fergus was up to. “Two double-A.”

“Might I borrow some money?” He held out his hand and winked. Jamie handed him some bills and watched Fergus saunter over to the counter. He leaned over casually, his hand tucking his long brown hair behind his ear. Jamie laughed under his breath. “How do ye both have this magical charm ye can turn on when needed?”

“Oh, you have it, too. Yours is just on all the time,” she said, grinning.

“Now I’m curious what would happen if I turned it off. Would ye be less likely to overlook my faults wi’ no charm to distract ye?” His eyes twinkled, a shining moment in the midst of a storm.

“Hmm. Best not risk it.” She rested her hand on his neck, fingers twisting his auburn curls. “Come here. I owe you a kiss.” She pulled his mouth to hers and savored the warm fullness of his lips against hers, the rough stubble of his chin scratching her skin.

“Ahem.” Fergus’ unsubtle throat-clearing drew them apart and he set two batteries on the table before Jamie. “I am good at noticing resourceful people.” He grabbed his laptop, stuffed it into his bag, and nodded toward the exit. “Ready?”

Claire’s mind ran through a sped-up reel of her life in the past weeks. From Frank’s last breaths to her desperate, terrifying escape; finding Jamie, losing Jamie; coming together and creating something new between the two of them. And behind all the emotions was the reason she had started this journey: to stop SGI. To bring them down and make them pay for all the people who suffered, who had died. To punish them for stealing her work and using it for harm. The anger bubbled up in her again, her life now a constant roller coaster of emotions.

Once in the car, they put in the coordinates and stared silently as the GPS zeroed in to a building. “That is… central Paris, _premier arrondissement_. We barely managed to get into Edinburgh.” Claire’s tone was strained. “We need to find someone in the press to give this information to first, someone who can expose this publicly.”

“I gave Fergus my word we’d find his mother - “

“I’m not saying we won’t,” she interrupted.

He looked at her with his brows knit tightly together, annoyed by her suggestion. “Ye did, actually. And I’ll not entertain the thought. Ye canna just leave her, his only kin, with them doing God-knows-what to her!”

She turned from him then, her jaw tensed. It was too much, what they were doing. Why had she thought she could do anything to stop this? “I didn’t force you to leave your family to come with me, Jamie.”

His voice was quiet and hard, balanced on the edge of a blade. “Leave them? No ye didna do that since I left them long before I met ye. And now I dinna ken if they’re dead or alive. But I _chose_ this. I chose _you_.”

Her breath shook, caught in a storm of confused emotions. Tears stung her bloodshot eyes. “Do you regret it?” she whispered.

He laid his head back against the seat, his eyes falling shut. When he opened them and turned his head to her, he found her watery eyes staring back, terrified. Her chin quivered, and he reached out to still it.

“No,” his voice cracked. “No, Claire.” He smiled and pulled her chin up, leaning over to kiss her gently.

“I’m just frightened, Jamie. I didn’t mean it, what I said about -”

“We are together. We’ll see this through.” He kissed her forehead and looked to Fergus in the driver’s seat, pretending not to notice them. “We need to get to the city center in any case, right?”

Fergus nodded. “I do not know who we can get the information to. We can take it to the press and hope they are not under my father’s thumb. But I _am_ going to get my mother. And I hope you will help.”

He turned in his seat and looked at them both, waiting for their response.

Claire nodded, eyes downturned. When she looked up, her face was calm. “Let’s get her, Fergus.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie, Claire, and Fergus head into Paris to find Fergus' mother and run into trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter (16) will be the final chapter of this story. Thank you to all who have read along!

Just outside the checkpoints of Paris, Fergus led Jamie and Claire through a maze of crumbling warehouses, they left the car behind, in the shadows of graffitied flats, devoid of life. The outer perimeter, meant as a show of authority more than actual safety, was full of security holes. These streets had always been home to street rats and vagrants, the disillusioned populations claiming the broken remains of a city as their own. After the disease spread, after the infected wiped each other out, it became the domain of ghosts. Something about the emptiness was more terrifying than any corporeal threat.

“Another mile and we’ll be near, but it’s inside the inner checkpoint. How do ye propose we get past that?” Jamie asked, tucking the GPS unit into his jacket pocket.

“The sewers,” Fergus replied. He stopped and chewed on his lip, working out his words. “I have not been underground in a while. It was...unpleasant, dangerous. But it was the only way to get in without detection. We must be careful.”

Jamie’s skin chilled with a gust of wind and his muscles tensed. Some deep, primal instinct coursed through him at the thought of danger, of trying to protect Claire and Fergus in the dark unknown before them. A man is always at war with the footprints of evolution. Fight, flight, protect, dominate, claim. He’d watched Claire free him from certain death at the hands of a madman; he knew how capable she was, and yet he wanted to hide her from any creature who dared to look at her askance. The need to survive was now wrapped up with the need for her to survive _with_ him, their lives strings knotted together, until there was no longer a beginning or an end.

The scraping metal of the street cover against the concrete rang through the night, but there was no one around to be disturbed apart from the pigeons. They slowly descended into the humid, putrid air below, blacker than night. Jamie held the flashlight before them, cutting a beam over the wet bricks.

“This way,” Fergus said. Their steps were slow, breath heavy on the exhale, as if each lifted foot was a gasping question and each step down on solid ground a relief.

They walked in eerie silence for some time, checking the walls for openings and doors. What few they found were bolted shut. They slowed as they got closer to the GPS coordinates, not wanting to miss anything. Jamie stopped, his hand reaching back to grasp Claire’s wrist. “Shh.”

They obeyed, uncertain of what he’d noticed. Ten seconds later, they heard the distinct splash of feet moving through water and the low murmurings of a voice, echoing toward them. Jamie reached into his pocket and pulled out the wrench he’d taken from the headquarters, placing it in Claire’s hand while he flicked the knife open in his own.

The man approaching them stopped, gone as still as they were. He began walking toward them again, slow but unwavering. Jamie kept the flashlight on, letting a little light bounce off the walls so they could see movement. The man’s smell burned their nostrils, as though he’d found his clothing in the bottom of a barrel of rotten fish. He stopped a couple feet from Jamie and sniffed. He leaned a bit closer to him and Jamie’s hand with the knife rose to his waist, ready to strike. The man sniffed again, louder.

“You smell like... _les frites_.” He laughed then, a throaty, raspy sound that introduced another rotten smell to the sewer.

Jamie stepped back toward Claire, letting his guard down a bit. “Aye, had some earlier. All gone now, I’m afraid.”

“Hmph. Save some for me next time, you greedy bastard.” He laughed again and squeezed by them, continuing on his way down the long tunnel. Another kind of madness left unchecked in the world.

Claire opened her mouth to speak once the man had walked a good distance away but stopped at the sound of him speaking again.

“Is she one of the angry women?” His words echoed to them.

“What?” Fergus yelled back to him.

The man shuffled back toward them again and stopped. “If you put her up there with the other angry ones, make sure the shiny shoes don’t see you.” He made a throat-slitting gesture.

“You’ve seen them?” Fergus motioned for Jamie to raise the light, so he could see the man better. “The angry people are above us?”

“No no no no. I don’t see them. I _hear_ them. Maurice saw them once and told me. And when he went back, shiny shoes got him dead, so no I stay down here, not up there.” He began patting at his pockets, as if he was looking for something.

Fergus tried again. “There is a way to get up to where the angry people are? From down here?”

The man looked into the dark passage where they’d been headed. “You bring me _les_ _frites_ next time?”

“Of course,” Fergus answered.

“Hmph. There’s a ladder down that way. Follow the passage until you see a door. You will figure it out then I think. I don’t go past there. Go now, take your angry woman away.” He stomped off into the dark and they waited for the sound of his feet splashing in the water to disappear before speaking.

“We’re going to trust him?” Claire asked, wrapping her arms across her chest.

“He’s no’ working for SGI. I think that much is clear. So, he’s either full of it and we’ll find nothing, or he’s seen what he says he has. We’re close to the coordinates.” Jamie put the knife away and looked to Fergus for his agreement.

“I can feel it. I know this is it.” Fergus tugged the band from his hair and pulled it back tight, pressing the stray hairs on the side behind his ears. The shame of his inability to save his mother had haunted him, staying perched on his shoulder as he ran away. Now, in the inky blackness, he felt the light of forgiveness bloom in his chest. He would hold her again and whisper that he had not forgotten her. He would own his dreams and banish the nightmares. It was not too late.

They found the ladder after a few more minutes of searching, the rusty rungs starting halfway up the damp wall. Fergus gripped the metal bars, old paint flaking off as his hands twisted against it. The next level was low-ceilinged, pipes from the building above running just above his head. Jamie walked hunched over to avoid concussion. The door, just as the man said, waited for them. Rust eating away at it, the handle brittle to touch.

Fergus pushed through and found himself barely able to squeeze through the opening. The tiny room had been boarded over and another level of the building began about four feet off the ground. They pressed tight together and shuffled in, inching their way to the end of the room, where the boards stopped, partially exposing the entrance to the next room.

“Not looking forward to coming back this way,” Claire whispered, the frivolity of the statement only making them more cognizant of the weight of what they were about to do. They had learned, at some point in the process, to silence the chatter of warning in their minds. Danger was ever-present, their purpose fraught with deadly risk. To dwell on it, even for second, could turn their bodies to stone. Adrenaline, instinct, trust. They could not stop.

Fergus notched his foot into a break in the boards and pushed himself up to the next level, pressed against the back of what seemed to be a storage shelving unit. The gap between the shelf and the wall wasn’t enough for him to wear his backpack so he took it off and held it out, inching along the wall until he got to the other side of the shelves where he found himself in a storage closet. Claire and Jamie followed, the three of them now pressed awkwardly together, terrified to move or make a noise. They waited, ears pressed to the door. Silence.

Peeking his head through the opened door, Fergus inched out into the hall. The room was dim, lit solely by the emergency lights running along the floor. The corridor consisted of one door in the middle, an open office at one end, and a heavy security door at the other. The door in the middle had a thick window, through which they saw a small hall with more doors with windows running from floor to ceiling for each room.

Fergus pressed his face against the window to get a better look, his breath fogging the glass. The faint outlines of slippers on the floor of the first room caught his eye, and when a thin arm reached down to move them, Fergus leapt back, his head knocking against Claire’s nose painfully. “A woman! There is a woman in there!”

Jamie grasped the door knob and wrenched at it in vain. “The office. We need to find the key.” They walked quickly to the office, an open space with a large desk, and other furniture scattered about. The desk was empty. Immaculate.

Fergus looked around, his face grimacing. “He was here.”

Claire watched as Fergus walked through the room, his hands clenching at his sides. She didn’t need to ask who he meant.

“I can smell his cologne.”

“There’s got to be keys somewhere,” Jamie said as he pulled drawers open in frustration.

Claire moved around the perimeter of the room, running her hands over shelves while looking around, hoping for the glint of metal to catch her eye. What did catch her eye was a keypad, embedded into the wall. “Fergus? Come here.”

He was at her side before she’d finished speaking. “This may be it! Well done,” he said smiling, squeezing her shoulder in thanks.

Jamie appeared behind them. “Anyone familiar with safecracking?”

Fergus grunted, annoyed at yet another obstacle.

Claire ran her fingers over the keypad, humming to herself. “Are there any numbers you can think that were significant to him?”

Fergus nodded. “I’ll try.” Maybe his birthday. He typed in the numbers. Red light. He tried numbers from addresses and his mother’s birthday and laughed angrily while punching in his own birthday. Nothing.

Jamie hummed behind him, thinking. “The boat… Scalamandre. He named the project after it. And ye said he had the picture with the dock number, was it?” He knew he was grasping at straws, but every second they stood in the office was another second closer to someone discovering them.

Fergus’ eyes grew wide. “Oui! Of course!” He typed in the numbers on the pad and was met with a green light and a click as the lock disengaged. He swung the door open and retrieved the set of keys inside. “These must be for the rooms.”

Fergus ran ahead of them, nearly stumbling in the dark corridor. All the keys hung on one loop, save one, which was on its own smaller loop. He slid that into the lock on the main door and opened it. His heart hammered in his chest as they proceeded down the hall, past the cells. Inside the first, a woman sat, eyes vacant, staring through them as if they weren’t there. They continued past two more women, a man, and finally, at the end, Fergus pressed his face to the glass and a sob escaped his throat.

She was curled on her side on a bed, the dark curls of her hair springing wildly over the pillow. Frail and listless. His hands shook, rattling the keys, and Claire took them from him, trying each one until the door opened. He stepped into the room, lit only by the dim blue lights running along the baseboards. She sat up slowly as he approached, running her hand through her hair, saying nothing.

Kneeling before her, Fergus grasped her cold hands, pressing them between his. “I’ve come for you, mère.”

She stared at him, a crease between her eyes. “Who are you? Are you taking me home?” A wave of pain - hate and fury and rage - crashed over him. What had they done to her?

“Yes, we are going home. Come.” He helped her up and guided her to Claire’s arm. “This is Claire. She will help you. Hold on to her, okay?” She moved to the hallway where Jamie stood waiting.

“We should get the others out. We canna leave them trapped,” Jamie said, holding his hand out to get the keys from Claire.

She had opened her mouth to object, to tell him they had to consider how they could safely get everyone out and where to take them, but the words were lost in the blinding light that illuminated the hall, in the silent power of the silhouetted man standing in the doorway at the end.

“Amelie should not be leaving her room.” His voice was smooth and calm, a match for his demeanor. Though it was the middle of the night, he looked like he’d just stepped out of his office.

Amelie began to pull away from Claire, shaking. “No. Please. I’m sorry.”

Fergus stepped around his mother and stood next to Jamie, facing his father. “We are leaving with her.”

Fergus’ body began to shake in his anger and Jamie reached a hand out, grasping his shoulder to calm him, to assure him he was not alone in this fight.

Fergus’ father tilted his head, leaning off to the side a bit to see around him. “Claudel. And Ms. Randall. It is funny to see you here because I had been assured you perished, but I see that is not the case. I don’t suppose you all are responsible for the strange occurrence at the headquarters tonight?”

“You son of a bitch. You heartless, despicable, miserable excuse for a man. How could you do it?!” Claire’s voice rose with each word, rousing the people in the cells lining the hall. “Your son, the mother of your child, millions of people. You have destroyed countless lives. You took my work and used it to hurt people. And for what?!”

Jamie watched St. Germain take in her words, watched as he fidgeted, head turning to look behind him. He wasn’t concerned about what she was saying. He was stalling.

Jamie’s eyes darted to the storage room door, where they’d entered. It was a tight squeeze, slow and difficult. Getting away with Amelie, running through the sewer with her at risk of being trapped - they needed another way out. Behind St. Germain, through the door, he could see a warehouse and security lights illuminating a large raised door. St. Germain’s car was parked inside, and he was clearly waiting for backup. Straight out the front might be their best option, with room to run.

A smirk grew on St. Germain’s face and Jamie could feel the anger rolling off of Claire and Fergus.

“ _Trou de cul!”_ Fergus’ voice echoed in the hall, his chest heaving.

They couldn’t risk staying another moment. Jamie turned and whispered quickly. “Be ready to run. Go out the front door straight for the car. Don’t stop. I’ll meet you there.”

Before anyone could say anything, Jamie turned and ran, roaring as he drove his shoulder into St. Germain, sending them both flying against the glass wall of the first cell. Claire and Fergus grabbed Amelie’s arms and nearly carried her as they ran through the door, angling through warehouse shelves and crates until they saw the light at the door. The crashes behind them echoed in the cavernous space.

“Claudel!” His father’s voice rang in his ears.

Fergus looked behind him as they neared the exit and saw Jamie still struggling with his father, tumbling across the floor. Jamie had nearly gotten away when St. Germain tripped him up and was upon him again. “Claire, go! As fast as you can to the car, go!” Claire didn’t even turn back, just ran, Amelie’s feet sliding across the concrete as Claire dragged her along. Fergus turned and ran back to Jamie.

Fergus dove at his father’s body, sending him off balance enough for Jamie to get free. They both leapt to their feet and began running toward the door.

Jamie had just cleared the door when the shot rang out. He turned and saw Fergus wrenching away from a guard, pressing the man’s gun-wielding arm back. His foot came down on the guard’s and he sprung loose from his grip. As Fergus bolted toward Jamie outside the door, his sleeve caught on part of the door mechanism, jerking him back as he tried to rip it loose.

The horror played out before Jamie’s eyes, slow and unstoppable. The guard’s gun leveled. A shout of “no!” that had to have been St. Germain. The guard’s body toppling as St. Germain threw himself upon him. Another shot rang out, followed by a crunch and horrible scraping of metal as the huge door fell free of its lowering mechanism and plummeted down. Jamie grabbed Fergus’ collar and yanked him out before they would be trapped inside, then found himself holding nothing in his hand. The scream from Fergus’ throat pierced the night.

“Oh god. Oh god, Fergus.” Jamie dropped to his knees and saw the blood pooling around Fergus’ arm, trapped under the door. Fergus lie still, white-faced, eyes wide, a horrible sound rising in his throat. Jamie scrambled to his feet and bent his knees, gripping the bottom of the door. His entire frame shook with effort as the door lifted an inch, another inch. Fergus screamed at the pain. “Move, Fergus! Pull your hand out!”

Fergus rolled then, tucking his hand to his chest. Jamie dropped the massive door with a crash and grabbed Fergus, pulling him to his feet. He yanked Fergus’ belt from his pants and quickly improvised a tourniquet, before pushing the sweat-soaked hair from Fergus’ pale forehead. “We’ve got to run now, Fergus.” Jamie saw Fergus’s eyes focus on his. He nodded once and they were off, praying they could get to Claire, who had run with Amelie back to where they’d stashed the car.

They ran, cold sweat drying instantly on their brows, Fergus tripping and gasping. They ran until it felt impossible, that they’d missed a turn, had lost their way. There were openings in the fenced off perimeter, meant for exiting. They were guarded, but only to keep people out. Jamie slowed his steps as they approached the closest exit to the warehouse, weaving with Fergus to appear as harmless drunkards. Once through, they picked up their pace again, frantically angling through buildings. A small flash of light caught Jamie’s eye. Claire signaling them. The car running and waiting. “Hospital! We need a hospital!” he screamed.

Claire’s hands shook on the steering wheel, her voice murmuring reassurances to Fergus curled in on himself in the backseat, his shirt soaked with blood. “Won’t they find us, Jamie? Can we risk it?”

Jamie pulled up the city map on his GPS and turned to Claire. “There’s nowhere else to go. Claire, we have to.” The midnight streets were thankfully quiet, as Claire careened around tight corners. Amelie remained silent, her face blank.

Jamie ran into the hospital with Fergus tucked under his shoulder, Claire and Amelie close behind. The mad rush of doctors and nurses swarmed them, whisking Fergus away. For all their attempts to be safe, they could not watch over him now. Only hope.

Jamie pulled Claire to him, shaking with the shock of what they’d done, their minds still trapped in the panic of escape. “I’m sorry. God, Claire…”

“He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay.” Claire spoke quietly, comforting herself as much as him. As their bodies begin to collapse, a tall figure approached them. A woman in a nun’s habit.

“Excuse me. I saw you come in with the young man. Would you care to join me in the chapel to pray for him and to ask God for guidance?” Her voice was gentle and soothing.

Claire shook her head. “No, I -”

“You have been on a great journey and it may help to share your burden.” Her eyes flicked between Jamie and Claire, their expressions confused. “Perhaps I may help you learn what is next for you. Your friend, he is safe.”

Claire looked her in the eye and saw truth, blind trust the only option left. She nodded.

“I am Mother Hildegarde. Come with me, please.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Fergus recovers from the accident, Claire learns more about Frank and Mother Hildegarde offers help in the exposure of SGI. They then journey back to Scotland for some unfinished business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, the final chapter. I am so grateful for the wonderful readers who have followed this story. Your interest and encouragement means a great deal to me.

The sconces in the hospital chapel cast an amber glow against the barren walls, the door’s lock the only sound in the room other than the gentle whir of air vents. Claire stood stock still in the aisle. “Who are you?”

Mother Hildegarde gestured to the chairs at the front and moved to sit in one, waiting for them. Her voice was deep and solemn. “You are familiar with an agent by the name of Wakefield?” She crossed herself as she said his name.

Claire sucked in a breath at the memory of life draining from him on the boat in Edinburgh. She nodded for her to continue.

“He came to me two years ago. He had been posing as a priest, moving through the Church to develop a network of agents. The government institutions were crumbling rapidly as the disease and fear spread, and his agency believed private corporations were behind it. The irony of the Church fighting to retain government control over institutions was not lost on anyone. But morally, the path was clear. To me, at least. I was able to move with less scrutiny in support of agents.”

She stood and walked to a water dispenser against the wall, filled a paper cup and returned. She offered it to Amélie, who accepted it with a faint smile.

“Where is the boy? Did we lose him?” Amélie asked, her eyes heavy with exhaustion.

“He’s with the doctors. You’ll see him soon,” Claire reassured her. Amélie’s own mental state was worrisome, and she tried not to think about what permanent damage may have been done to her.

“We canna offer our trust easily, you must understand,” Jamie said, stretching his arm across the back of Claire’s chair.

“I do understand. So, I would ask you, how it is you think I knew I would find you here, now? Or how Fiona knew you had to go to the abbey, to find Fergus?”

The breath Claire didn’t know she was holding passed over her lips in a whoosh, her eyes landing on Jamie’s, wide with understanding. “How?”

“Is this his backpack?” Mother Hildegarde gestured to the pack at Jamie’s feet, blood staining the straps. He held it up to her and she turned it over on her lap, running her fingers along the seam at the back until she found a small square. She stuck her hand inside the bag and pulled, the fabric ripping, then held out her hand to them.

The small black device was thin and not unlike the drive Frank had left for Claire. Claire grasped it between her fingers, holding it up to the light. “Fiona tracked him?”

“Mmhm. Off the record, of course. He had disappeared for all the agency knew. She contacted me shortly after you left on the Ping An, knowing you would be heading to Paris and that I might be of assistance. She informed me of what you’d been through, your husband, your escape, the problems in Edinburgh.”

“And _how_ might ye be assisting us then, Mother?” Jamie was still tense, worry for Fergus’ well-being weighing heavily on him. He tried not to picture it, but the images crept in at the periphery of his vision, again and again. What he might have done to get him out faster. How his failure to break free of St. Germaine had brought Fergus back into the building. A million regrets lurked in the shadows of his mind.

Mother Hildegarde smiled sadly at him, knowing the struggle he must be waging inside. “Did you find proof of wrongdoing at SGI?”

“Proof?” Claire’s eyes were red-rimmed, shimmering in the low light. “Amélie is proof. SGI developed the virus on _her_. On others like her. Kept them caged and drugged.”

Mother Hildegarde reached for Amélie’s hand and took it gently in her own. “Oh, my dear,” her voice tinged with sorrow.

Claire pulled the hard drive from Fergus’ backpack and held it out. “It’s all here. What they tested on people, how it was released. Everything. What do we do?”

Mother Hildegarde did not take it, but looked back at Claire, a smile breaking across her wrinkled skin. “We must light the beacons.”

She explained her network, those she could trust with the information to disseminate and amplify. It would have to go quickly to capture them before they had a chance to blink. There would be no going back.

As she spoke, Claire’s mind drifted to Frank and his final hours underground. The fear he must have felt knowing his secret had been found, that his wife would be compromised, that he could do nothing to stop it. Her fingers trembled as she reached into the waistband of her pants, pressing her nails against the lining until she pulled out the tiny drive he’d left her. She held her hand out, pale and shaking. “Do you have a way to read this?”

Mother Hildegarde froze, her mouth caught on a word. “Is this…?”

“Frank’s. Yes.”

She closed Claire’s fingers over it and stood, nodding for them to follow her. Quietly they glided through the halls, just another group of pained and weary people, unlucky enough to be spending their night in a hospital. She led them down the stairs to a quiet hall of offices and unlocked one.

Inside was a nondescript desk, no adornments or personal affects. She unlocked the desk and pulled out a small laptop and another small device she plugged into it. Claire sat next to her and handed her the drive. She pressed it into the device and unlocked it, using a sequence of codes. The screen, only visible straight on, filled with words. She turned to Claire, a sad smile on her face.

“It is for you.”

Mother Hildegarde pushed the laptop to face Claire.

_Claire, I am sorry for what you must be feeling at this moment. I had imagined it would not come to this, that we would be out of the bunker before anyone found me, but as time stretched on, the walls closed in. I knew eyes were on me. On us. And I was helpless to stop it. I can only hope that you did not suffer for my actions._

_The guilt I felt for deceiving you throughout our marriage occupied a permanent place in my heart, shutting you out from what you deserved. I imagined my distance would save you, keep you from caring too much. I hope I succeeded. Yet I hope I did not._

_I considered a thousand times confessing it all to you. And a thousand more times I considered all the ways it could go wrong. There was no right decision for us._

_The dreams you wake from, these nightmares, feel like a harbinger. I leave the room unable to listen to your frantic breathing, afraid that if I'll wake you up, I'll tell you everything._

_I fear that my involvement in this has held you back in some ways, that I have not been the support you needed to achieve all that you are capable of. I have always felt like a moth dancing near a flame with you. In this, I am a coward. I hope you will find someone who can catch your light and not burn in it._

_Do not be tempted to mourn me. Only mourn what we’ve lost in this world and fight to get it back._

_Know I loved you._

_Frank_

A tear slid over a cut on her cheek, unnoticed until the burn of the salt pulled her from her weeping. The room was silent save her breath, shaking and brittle. Jamie had leaned against the wall, his eyes soft, watching her. She stood and walked to him, falling against his warm chest, the tang of his sweat awakening her senses, as Frank’s words echoed in her mind.

These people, these survivors, did not deserve to watch their shattered world burn. Do not mourn. Fight.

She pressed her fingers into Jamie’s back, drawing his strength into herself. Then she straightened and cleared her throat. “Light the beacon.”

* * *

 

In the flickering light of the muted television, Amélie traced her finger lightly over Fergus’ brow. A chicken pox scar on his temple. A mole on his cheek. The rough stubble of his jaw. Underneath it all, the baby who had gasped and squealed in the wind. Who had gnawed on her knuckles with his red teething gums. Who had chased dogs and wept fat tears when they ran too fast for him to grasp their tails.

His eyes fluttered open, unfocused. His mother. A dream.

“Your hair has grown so long.” Her finger wrapped in a curl and she smiled at him.

Fergus’ heart stuttered in his chest. “Oui, maman. I can cut it.”

“No, I like it.”

He had forgotten for a moment the pain in his hand, but felt it again now, burning. Unable to raise his arm, he stretched his neck and saw, at his wrist, nothing. Nausea washed over him and his head fell back to the pillow, his cheeks burning and quivering as he tried to process it. His mother’s hand, cool against his skin, turned his face to her.

“We’ll get you a new one.”

* * *

 

Fiona pinched the folded edge of the letter between her fingers, sliding them over the crease before returning it to the envelope. The law firm’s letterhead was just visible through the back of the letter. She’d looked at it twenty times since it had delivered the day prior and it seemed no less real now than it had at first glance. She wished for a moment that Wakefield was here, so she could tell him how bloody ridiculous he was.

“Biscuit! Get down!” The cat leapt from the coffee table where he’d been attempting to snag her bread crumbs from lunch and casually sauntered away into the dark recesses of Fiona’s flat. “Ye wee monster, I swear ye -” She stopped short at the buzzing coming from her desk drawer.

The phone had not been used in some time, the battery nearly drained. She flipped it open and unlocked it, watching wide-eyed as the words lit up the small screen.

_Success - dominoes falling. Reports incoming._

They’d done it. Years of trying to trace the outbreak, trying to link SGI to it, and those bastards just walked in and found everything. She felt tears gather in her eyes. Would it really change? It seemed impossible to imagine the SGI forces no longer controlling everything. Could it possibly happen without violence? There were still people out there with the disease, still people quarantined and lost to the world. This was not an end, but a beginning. Through the crippling weight of loss, she felt the lift of hope.

Fiona turned on the old radio she’d gotten from her grandmother and listened, waiting for the world to hear the news.

* * *

 

Jamie’s thoughts grew darker in the days they hid in the hospital. Mother Hildegarde had brought guards and assured them of their safety. Safe as a prison can be. Jamie and Claire had both tripped over their words, trying to find a path through the darkness. She’d not read Frank’s letter to him, but he saw enough on her face to know it pained her more than she’d let on. At night she clung to him as if she’d drown without him keeping her afloat. When she thought him asleep, she whispered promises to find his family. He would have silenced her if he didn’t feel he deserved the pain it roused in his chest. All that had been lost, what he could never make up to Fergus, felt heavier than the victory they’d achieved.

Jamie leaned against the linen drawers in Fergus’ room, his hands pushed into his pockets as he cast his eyes down, examining the scuffs in the floor. He said nothing.

Since the accident, since word had gone out into the world of SGI’s orchestration of the outbreak, the four of them had huddled in the hospital rooms, peeking at television broadcasts showing protests and mobs and boisterous politicians. They had stayed under guard while government agents swept through France, rounding up SGI’s leaders. One after another they paraded past cameras. Stony-faced and defiant.

But one face never appeared amongst the accused. Rakoczy had disappeared, drops of his blood on the warehouse floor the only traces left. It took an entire day to discover the Scalamandre was gone, and days more of searching the seas yielded no leads. Sunk in storms, they said. Empty words.

Fergus held his arm against his body, a loose sling supporting it. When he stood, he felt his balance off, the missing weight of his hand confusing his mind. His stance widened as he stared at Jamie’s immobile face. “If I had not run back, that guard would have shot you. You would have done the same for me. I do not regret my actions.”

Jamie swallowed and slowly raised his eyes. “Aye.” The word dissolved in the air. “I canna say the same.”

Fergus looked away, shaking his head. “When you held your hand out to me at the abbey, when you made your promise to help me, I made a vow to myself to stop running. To stare down my fears and do what I must. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I could. Because I knew you’d be there. That you had made a choice too, to believe in me.”

Jamie straightened his body and let out a shaky breath. When Fergus looked back at him, a smile slowly grew on Jamie’s face. “I do believe in ye. And I am with ye, Fergus. Always.”

Fergus held up his hand and smiled. Jamie grasped it and pulled Fergus to him, careful not to touch his injured arm.

“Ready?”

They pulled apart and turned to the door where Claire stood with Amélie, bags slung over her shoulders. Amélie had become significantly more lucid, though her voice stayed wary and uncertain. The doctors had given her medication to counteract the anxiety and help her recover from SGI’s drugs, and declared her physically well despite her weakened state. The trauma of what had happened and how much she could recall was still locked inside her.

Mother Hildegarde stepped between the guards posted at the door and nodded at Claire. “Shall we?”

She led them to a van, parked at a supply dock away from the chaos. Pulling Claire to her, she whispered against her ear, “God has given you a brave soul. I am sorry I cannot send protection with you where you are going.”

Claire’s chest constricted, muscles clenching ribs and lungs, her heart pounding. It was never bravery. Never some extraordinary choice. It was fear and survival. It was shock and rage. It was strength and hope. It was love.

* * *

 

They drove for days, cutting a swath through the farmland of France and England’s browning countryside, the low sun peeking through heavy clouds over the horizon. Snowflakes dusted the windshield as they neared the abandoned checkpoints of Edinburgh. Claire’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and she glanced over at Jamie to find him drowsily watching her.

“Something on your mind?” she teased him, flashing a flirty smile, keeping her voice low as Fergus and Amélie slept in the back.

“Hmmm…” The deep hum of his voice made her shiver. “Ye hold my heart in yer hands.”

She pulled the van to the side, stopping under the misting glow of a street light. Turning to him she traced the contour of his cheek with her fingers. “Jamie.”

“My life is yours.” He held her hand and turned his head to kiss her palm.

“Whither thou goest…” she breathed into the space between them. It was not a promise, but a recording of their story, spoken for the beauty of hearing the words. The truth of it already embedded in their union.

A few hours later, their bodies sang those words against the cool linens of their hotel bed, fingertips tracing their story on the skin, in the slippery warmth between her legs, in the sweat gathered on the straining muscles of his back.

In the morning, when they’d had their breakfast and morning tea as if the world were not hanging by a thread, they followed Fergus and his mother into the quiet side streets of Edinburgh. Under the weathered sign of an antiques shop, Fergus stopped, a smirk curling his lips.

A cat sidled up to him, pressing itself against his leg, arching its back and shivering in anticipation of Fergus’ fingers scratching its hindquarters.

“Biscuit, what are you doing out here?” Fergus crouched and ran his hand over Biscuit’s ears, drawing forth a deep purr from the cat.

Claire stepped forward and laughed lightly, “Is that Fiona’s -”

“Aye, he’s my…” Fiona’s voice was swallowed by her shock as she took in the faces before her. She’d been running down the close after the cat and stood now just ten feet away, unable to take another step. “Fergus!” Her hand flew to her mouth, as if the name had escaped without permission.

He stood, and she stepped closer, stopping again as she noticed the hand he held awkwardly in front of him, the stiff, smooth fingers.

“Oh…” Her face broke, and she bit her lip to hold herself together.

“No, Fi.” Fergus pulled Amelie to his side. “Fi, this is my mother. You saved her.”

“No, I -” she protested.

“Yes. We could not have found her without you.”

The night Fiona met Jamie and Claire had lived in her memory as horror and violence, the desperation of their escape a panicked dream. Now, she felt the memories transform, love and gratitude draping themselves over the fear. How can we measure our actions and their consequences when life and death ride the waves beside us? One pulls us under; the other lifts us up.

Fiona had lost much and found little, and the fortune of her future lay in the words of a letter tucked in her desk.

* * *

 

“You are leaving?” Fergus had slowly slumped lower on Fiona’s futon as the night wore on. His mother had stayed back at the hotel, still exhausted by her mind’s efforts to escape its prison.

“Aye. This is the first chance I’ve had to choose my own destination. I think he’d like the idea of me using his money to venture out a bit.” She’d had more whisky than was advisable and her head lolled back against the futon, a giggle rising in her throat.

“Do you know where you’ll go?”

“Hm. Weel, I’ve a friend in Norway I’d like to meet, someone I’ve gotten to know well. She has a farm. With goats.”

Fergus pushed himself up suddenly and turned to her, a mischievous grin on his face. “You have a Norwegian goat farmer girlfriend?” His final words were swallowed by laughter.

“No! Not exactly. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m going to go and find out.” Where the whisky had left her flushed, she was now entirely red-faced, her cheeks shining in the lamplight. “Okay, feel free to quit yer laughin’ any minute now.”

* * *

 

Edinburgh receded in the rearview mirror as they took to the road once again. The crumbling buildings and abandoned properties somehow less ominous than when last they’d passed them. Jamie’s fingers tapped a rhythm against the steering wheel, a betrayal to his cool facade.

The joy and hope that had awakened much of the world in the last week did little to lighten Jamie’s mind, his loss and fear still tapping his shoulder at every turn. Murtagh. Jenny and Ian. The children. Lallybroch. To lose all of them... He doubted he could survive it, even with Claire.

“We’ll find them. We’ll not stop until we do.” She’d said it before. And would say it again. He embraced her words and the certainty in her voice, and begged them to be enough.

They went silent as they neared Lallybroch. Perhaps not a feeling of doom, but the ominous inevitability of the truth soon to be revealed. He pulled the van to the side of the narrow road before they crested the hill and waved them all out to go the rest of the way on foot. He said it was to disguise their approach should trouble present itself, but in truth it was dread slowing him. The soul-crushing possibility that they’d not be there.

Jamie stopped as the stone house came into view, smoke exhaling through the chimney. “Someone’s there.”

Claire wrapped her hand around his arm, his muscles taut with tension. “I’m with you. Let’s go see.”

They descended the hill and caught sight of more signs of life. Freshly cut wood stacked near the door. Flower beds recently weeded. The front door opened, freezing the four of them in place, hearts thundering. A head, topped with unruly dark hair, leaned out to look at them, his face screwed up squinting to make out who they were.

“Oh god. Ian.” Jamie grasped Claire’s hand and began running down to the house, waving his other hand in the air. “Ian!”

The dawning realization across Ian’s face shone brilliant and he took off running, first yelling into the house, words lost behind the walls. “Uncle Jamie!” Jamie lifted Young Ian off his feet, his gangly limbs swinging in the air. And soon the house emptied with Murrays spilling out in chattering elation. Jamie stood before Jenny, chest heaving, waiting as his sister steadied herself.

“Jamie,” her voice cracked. “We thought ye…” She held her hands on her hips, the slight swaying of her body and the rippling quiver of her chin the only sign of her anguish. “Where have ye been, brother?”

He opened his mouth to answer and found no words. Where had he been? Where to begin? A tear escaped his eye, tracking down his face, and he said the only thing he could. “Janet.” He stepped forward and pulled her to him. “I’m home.”

He found Ian beaming behind her, as he pulled away from Jenny. “I knew ye’d be back, Jamie.”

“Ian. How did ye take it back from them?”

Ian smiled at him, a brow raised. “ _We_ didn’t. _He_ did.”

Jamie turned to where Ian pointed. His breath caught in his throat. Murtagh. He couldn’t recall moving, but suddenly found himself before his Godfather, struck dumb. Jamie stood frozen, but was woken from his trance as Murtagh grasped his arms and pulled him into a fierce hug.

When finally Jamie found his voice, he brushed the tears from his face and asked, “I’ve mourned ye. We all have. Where have ye been these years? How?”

Murtagh’s voice was rough, raspier than Jamie had remembered. “I was… unlucky. The disease caught me. But some good folk took me in, kept me from harmin’ myself or anyone else, kept me alive. And I was healed. Came here and found the house overrun with nomad rats. So… I got rid of them.”

“God, man,” Jamie shook his head in disbelief.

“Could have used a bit of help.”

The home had been ransacked, violated, and abused. The wood forever marred with careless scratches and burns. Their mother’s paintings destroyed. In the end, the disease had claimed the objects of their lives as well.

* * *

 

Claire wrapped her hands around a steaming mug of mint tea one evening, and Jenny settled into the seat opposite her at the kitchen table. The house was slowly coming together again, an endless list of chores to tend to, and a food supply dangerously low. Fergus and his mother spent most of their days at the hospital in Inverness, fitting him with a prosthetic while she was seen by doctors who tried to assess the damage done to her brain as she still slipped in and out of lucidity.  

Jamie and Ian’s voices rumbled down the hall from the office where they’d hidden away an hour ago. Jenny had no stomach to recount what had happened when they’d fled. The terror that flooded her veins would haunt her for the rest of her days, the peace she’d once known, lost.

“Where will ye go? Not many jobs for scientists around these parts, I don’t think.” She didn’t look at Claire, her eyes lost in the tea leaves. She’d never say it, but Claire knew the fear that lurked beneath Jenny’s exterior. That she’d lose them.

“I have contacted a lab in Switzerland where a friend of mine works. They have begun some vaccination projects I’m hoping to be a part of. There is a push for reinvestment, so I think I have a good chance there.”

“Oh aye, Switzerland? The Alps. Jamie’ll be going with you?” Her attempt at a casual comment was lost in the pain of her eyes.

Claire nodded. “He’ll not be gone, Jenny. We’ll be back to see you, to visit as often as we can. His family is everything to him.”

Perhaps before the outbreak it would seem unlikely for two people to find each other and fuse into one, their future a singular path. But now, having felt the world tip from its axis with no warning, it was not so hard to understand. Jenny looked at Claire with the understanding and love of a sister, trusting her word.

“Ye’ll no’ miss a holiday or I’ll drag ye both back here myself,” she grinned, sniffling despite her attempts to contain her emotions.

* * *

 

“Where have you been? I assumed your trip to Inverness was for a few hours, not the entire day.” Claire rolled the freshly laundered shirts on the bed and began pressing them to the bottom of her pack, readying for their departure the next day.

“Phones.” Jamie tossed one that bounced on the mattress, landing by her leg.

“And? That couldn’t be all.”

He sat next to her and she steadied herself as the mattress dipped under his weight. “I made contact with Hugh. Pure luck. Ran into an old friend who’d climbed with him years ago. He wasn’t far, so I drove down to him and we discussed an idea I had.”

“What do you mean?” She pushed herself back to rest against the headboard and he settled next to her, tucking her under his arm.

“Ye ken Fiona gave some money to Fergus, to help him and his mother get settled?”

Claire nodded.

“He’s worrit about providing for her down the road. He won’t speak it, but I’m sure. So, I talked to Hugh about starting up the program again, hiking and climbing excursions for the deaf, the disabled. Maybe expand to the kids who lost families and are sufferin’ from trauma. We had grants before and I spoke with one of the schools in Inverness. There’s plenty of kids in need. It’ll take time, but I think he can petition again once things begin to settle and rebuild. They’re going to crack down on nomads from what I hear, but Murtagh will be along as protection at the start.” Jamie looked at her, his brow furrowed as he waited for her reaction.

“Jamie, that’s… that’s wonderful. Do you think Fergus would want to learn?”

“I do. I believe he’s ready for this. I’ve someone coming down tomorrow morning who’ll be working with Hugh as well to talk to him about it.”

* * *

 

Fergus cursed as he crushed the falling egg against the side of the basket with his prosthetic hand, and he glanced back hoping no one saw. Each moment seemed another reminder of his inadequacy, another chance to falter and fail. He set the basket down at the base of the steps to the kitchen’s door and looked up to find his mother smiling at him, hands on her hips like Jenny always seemed to. He tilted his head and couldn’t help grinning back at her.

“Did you not know your son was a natural farmer?”

She laughed quietly, her cheeks dimpling. “I wish I had known. I would have gotten a cow a long time ago.”

Their moment was interrupted by a truck slowly coming down the hill. It pulled to a stop and a young woman got out, her blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail. She walked toward him with a smile on her face, a confident swagger to her steps. Jamie had mentioned someone coming to talk to him about working with student groups. He’d not expected her, though.

She stopped in front of him and held out her hand. “Are ye Fergus, then?”

He grasped her hand and shook it, noting that her eyes never strayed to his prosthetic, but stayed glued to his face, bright and shining in the morning sun. “I am. You are working with Hugh? Jamie told me to expect someone…”

She lifted a teasing brow and nodded. “I am that someone. But ye may call me Marsali.”

A flush spread over his skin and he felt frozen in place, unable to let go of her hand. “Marsali. My pleasure.”

From the window in the hall, Claire pressed her hand against the cool glass, watching Fergus and Marsali in the yard below. Jamie’s hands slid from her hips across her middle, pulling her tight to his body. His breath blew strands of her hair over her eyes.

She pressed her hands against his, the bumps of his knuckles pressing into the soft pads of her hands. “Are you ready to go?”

He hummed, the vibrations of his chest coursing through her. “Aye. I’m ready, Sassenach. Lead the way.”

* * *

The end.

 


End file.
